Early change of C-reactive protein level in TKA : Antibiotic-loaded vs Plain bone cement

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To analyse the level of C-reactive protein (CRP) after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) with antibiotic-loaded bone cement (ABLC) and plain bone cement (PBC). MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the 75 primary TKAs, 35 cases with risk factors for infection were fixed with ABLC and 36 cases without risk factors were fixed with PBC. We did comparative analysis of the changing trends of the level of CRP up to 6 months after TKA in the 2 groups. RESULTS: The CRP levels at 5th,7th, 10th, 14th day and 1.5 th, 3 th, 6 th months after TKA were average 3.03, 1.50, 1.00, 0.60, 0.48, 1.04 and 0.60 mg/dl in the ABLC group, and 3.71, 2.16, 1.08, 0.78, 0.58, 0.27 and 0.31 mg/dl in the PBC group. The results were ALBC group, even having some risk factors for infection, showed the lower levels of CRP in early recovery period after TKA than PBC group. But two group has no significant difference statistically (p=0.08). CONCLUSION: Even though some risk factors for infection, statistically same returning patterns of the CRP levels in the ABLC group compare with the PBC group would be informative for observation about infection in TKA.