preoperative aspiration culture (pac) for the diagnosis of infection in a prosthetic knee joint

Background: periprosthetic infection is the most serious joint replacement complication, occurring in 0.8-1.9% of totalknee arthroplasties (tkas).this review aims to define the role of preoperative aspiration culture (pac) for diagnosis of tka infection.methods: a pubmed (medline) search related to tka infection and pac was analyzed. the main criteria for selectionwere that the articles were focused in the aforementioned question.results: twenty articles were found, but only fourteen were selected and reviewed because they were deeplyfocused on the topic. pac has shown an average sensitivity of 67.6% (range, 28% to 100%) and an averagespecificity of 98.4% (range, 96% to 100%).conclusion: pac has moderate to high sensitivity and very high specificity for diagnosing tka infection.level of evidence: iii