Introduction: The goal of the study was to evaluate our treatment protocols for peri-prosthetic infection after total hip replacement.

Méthode: A prospective study carried out between February 2003 and February 2005, included 100 patients treated for peri-prosthetic infection after total hip replacement. Debridement and prosthesis retention was performed in case of duration of symptoms of less than 14 days (11 cases), otherwise a one-stage (42 cases) or a two-stages (41 cases) prosthesis removal and re-implantation were carried out. A two-stage procedure was decided in case of important bone loss or undetermined germ. If general health state did not allow a re-implantation, an isolated prosthesis removal was performed (6 cases). Post-operatively, patients received intravenous antibiotics (6 weeks), then oral antibiotics (6 weeks). The mean follow-up was 2.2 years with no lost to follow-up. The main evaluation criteria was the rate of infection eradication with 2 years minimal follow -up. In case of a suspected new infection, a hip aspiration was performed to determine whether it was a non-eradication (same germ) or a new re-infection (other germ) which was not considered as a failure.

Results: Infection eradication rate was 95% and 100% for the one-stage surgical procedure. 5 failures were recorded (2 deaths and 3 non-eradications). However, 3 patients were re-infected with different germs. The rate of non-infected patiens at the last follow-up was 92%.

Conclusion: Our protocols were validated with a high success rate of 95%. Peri-prosthetic infection of the hip is severe even if well treated with a mortality rate of 2%.