RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Rule of Histology in the Diagnosis of Periprosthetic Infection: Specific Granulocyte Counting Methods and New Immunohistologic Staining Techniques may Increase the Diagnostic Value
Friedrich Boettner1, *, Gabriele Koehler2, Alexander Wegner4, Tom Schmidt-Braekling1, Georg Gosheger4, Christian Goetze3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
First Page: 457
Last Page: 465
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-10-457
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001610010457
Article History:
Received Date: 23/05/2016Revision Received Date: 06/07/2016
Acceptance Date: 16/08/2016
Electronic publication date: 26/09/2016
Collection year: 2016

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Objective:
The current study investigates the diagnostic accuracy of the criteria described for frozen sections and whether modern leukocyte specific staining techniques including leukocyte peroxidase and Naphtol-AS-D-chloroacetate-esterase will improve the accuracy of the intra-operative histology.
Method:
77 patients undergoing revision total hip and knee arthroplasty were included in this retrospective study. Patients were grouped into septic and aseptic based on intraoperative cultures. Tissue samples were analyzed utilizing the Mirra, Feldman, Lonner, Banit and Athanasou criteria.
Results:
An experienced pathologist had a high specificity (96%), but rather low sensitivity (57%) diagnosing infection. By using the Banit-, Mirra-, or Athanasou-criteria the sensitivity is increased to 0.90. The Feldman- and Lonner-criteria have a lower sensitivity (0.48 and 0.38), however, an increased specificity of 0.96 and 0.98, respectively. The Banit cut off has the highest accuracy (86%). MPOX and NACE staining increased the sensitivity and accuracy up to 100% and 92% respectively.
Conclusion:
Banit’s cut off is the most accurate histologic criteria to diagnose infection. Modern leukocyte specific staining techniques slightly improve the accuracy. The synovial fluid white blood cell count appears to be the most accurate intraoperative test.