Prophylaxis and treatment of infection in long bones using an antibiotic-loaded ceramic coating with interlocking intramedullary nails

Abstract Background: The study was done (1) to report on our recent experience with antibiotic-loaded calcium sulfate-coated interlocking intramedullary nails (CS-IMN) for infection prevention or infection eradication and (2) to compare the efficacy of CS-IMN versus antibiotic-loaded polymethylmethacrylate-coated IMN (PMMA-IMN) for infection eradication. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of consecutive patients who underwent a limb salvage procedure for infection cure or infection prevention with PMMA-IMN or CS-IMN. We reviewed patient demographics, host-type, pre-operative infecting organisms, intraoperative cultures, as well as our main outcomes: infection control rate, achievement of union/fusion, and limb salvage. Results: 33 patients were treated with CS-IMN: 9 patients with goal of infection cure and 24 patients for infection prophylaxis. When used for infection prophylaxis, there was a 100 % ( 24/24 patients) prevention of infection rate, 95.5 % union rate ( 21/22 patients), and 100 % ( 24/24 patients) limb salvage rate. Nine patients were treated with CS-IMN to eradicate infection and were compared to a cohort of 28 patients who were treated with PMMA-IMN. The infection was eradicated in 7/9 patients (77.8 %) in the CS-IMN group versus 21/26 patients (80 %) in the PMMA-IMN group ( p=0.44 ). Bone union/fusion was achieved in 8/9 patients (88.9 %) in the CS-IMN group versus 21/24 patients (87.5 %) in the PMMA-IMN group ( p=0.11 ). The limb salvage rate in the CS-IMN group was 100 % ( 9/9 patients) versus 89 % ( 25/28 patients) in the PMMA-IMN group. Conclusions: CS-IMN are safe and easy to use, and we have therefore expended our indications for them. CS-IMN are very effective at infection prophylaxis in high-risk cases where infection is suspected. Early analysis suggests that CS-IMN are non-inferior to PMMA-IMN for infection eradication. This is our preliminary data that show this novel technique to be safe in a small cohort and may be as effective as the more established method. Future studies with larger cohorts of patients will be required to confirm these findings.