Review Article Custom-Made Antibiotic Cement Nails in Orthopaedic Trauma: Review of Outcomes, New Approaches, and Perspectives

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Since the first description in 2002 by Paley and Herzenberg, antibiotic bone cement nails (ACNs) have become an effective tool in the orthopaedic trauma surgeons ’ hands. They simultaneously elute high amounts of antibiotics into medullary canal dead space and provide limited stability to the debrided long bone. In this paper, we perform a systematic review of current evidence on ACNs in orthopaedic trauma and provide an up-to-date review of the indications, operative technique, failuremechanisms, complications, outcomes, and outlooks for the ACNs use in long bone infection. 1