Comparison of surgical treatment options in periprosthetic shoulder infections: a systematic review from 2016 to 2022.

Background: Periprosthetic shoulder infection (PSI) management proves to be challenging because of patient morbidity, poor outcomes and need for reoperations. Different surgical treatment methods have been defined; however, a prominent method could not be determined. This systematic review investigated the most recent articles about various treatment modalities used in the surgical treatment of PSI to find the most effective method in terms of infection clearance and function.

Methods: The keywords were searched using PubMed (MEDLINE), ScienceDirect (Elsevier), and Google Scholar databases on September 30, 2022. Studies which report on operative treatment and have longer than 2-year follow-up were included in this review. Of the 555 studies in total, 16 were reviewed. The absence of symptomatic persistent infection (PI) during follow-up was regarded as a satisfactory outcome. Functional outcomes were analyzed according to the reported mean pooled Constant and Murley Score (CMS) and shoulder forward elevation degree (FE) for each treatment group.

Results: A total of 339 patients (139 female, 197 male) with 342 shoulders from sixteen studies were included. The mean age of the patients was 67.5±3.8 years, mean follow-up duration was 53.3±19.5 months. In total, 217 shoulders were treated with two-stage revision, 59 were treated with one-stage revision, 37 were treated with definitive spacer, 23 were treated with debridement, antibiotics, and implant retention (DAIR), and 6 were treated with resection arthroplasty. The PI rate in whole treatment groups was 9.9%. The PI rate was significantly highest in the DAIR group (30.4%, P=0.001), while there was no significant difference between other treatment groups (P=0.23). CMS and FE were available for 156 and 190 shoulders, respectively. CMS was highest in the one-stage revision group (63.4±5.9, P=0.001), and FE was highest in the DAIR group (119.3°±28.5°, P=0.001).

Conclusions: The revision surgeries (one-stage and two-stage revision) were more effective than the non-revision surgeries in functional outcomes. In terms of infection clearance, revision procedures were more successful. Surgeons should prefer revision methods over non-revision procedures when feasible.