Clinical Study The Cement Prosthesis-Like Spacer: An Intermediate Halt on the Road to Healing

License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Periprosthetic infections remain a devastating problem in the field of joint arthroplasty. In the following study, the results of a two-stage treatment protocol for chronic periprosthetic infections using an intraoperatively molded cement prosthesis-like spacer (CPLS) are presented. Methods. Seventy-five patients with chronically infected knee prosthesis received a two-stage revision procedure with the newly developed CPLS between June 2006 and June 2011. Based on the microorganism involved, patients were grouped into either easy to treat (ETT) or difficult to treat (DTT) and treated accordingly. Range of motion (ROM) and the knee society score (KSS) were utilized for functional assessment. Results. Mean duration of the CPLS implant in the DTT group was 3.6 months (range 3–5 months) and in the ETT group 1.3 months (range 0.7–2.5 months). Reinfection rates of the final prosthesis were 9.6 % in the ETT and 8.3 % in the DTT group with no significant difference between both groups regarding ROM or KSS