RESEARCH ARTICLE
Economical Analysis on Prophylaxis, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Periprosthetic Infections
Mariano Fernandez-Fairen*, 1, Ana Torres1, Ann Menzie1, Daniel Hernandez-Vaquero2, José Manuel Fernandez-Carreira2, Antonio Murcia-Mazon3, Enrique Guerado4 , Luis Merzthal5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
Issue: Suppl 2
First Page: 227
Last Page: 242
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-227
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010227
Article History:
Received Date: 11/1/2013Revision Received Date: 21/2/2013
Acceptance Date: 21/4/2013
Electronic publication date: 14/6/2013
Collection year: 2013

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The economic burden of periprosthetic infections is enormous, but the number of economic studies dealing with this issue is very scarce. This review tries to know the economic literature existing, assess the value of current data, and recognize the less costly and more effective procedures for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of periprosthetic infections.
Forty five studies meeting the inclusion criteria and adhering to the quality criteria used were carefully analyzed to extract the economic data of relevance in evaluating the magnitude of problem and the more cost-effective solutions. However, because the heterogeneity and the low-quality of most of these studies meta-analytical technique has not been possible. Instead, the studies have been reviewed descriptively.
Optimizing the antibiotic use in the prevention and treatment of periprosthetic infection, combined with systemic and behavioral changes in the operating room; detecting and treating the high-risk groups; a quick, simple, reliable, safe, and cost-effective diagnosis, and the rationale management of the instituted infection, specifically using the different procedures according to each particular case, could allow to improve outcomes and produce the highest quality of life for patients and the lowest economic impact. Nevertheless, the cost effectiveness of different interventions to prevent and to treat the periprosthetic infection remains unclear.