Evidence-based treatment of Achilles tendon rupture.

The treatment of Achilles tendon rupture has recently seen a shift toward non-operative management, as supported by the literature, yet many surgeons continue to treat these injuries operatively. The evidence clearly supports non-operative management of these injuries except for Achilles insertional tears and for certain patient groups, such as athletic patients, for whom further research is warranted. This nonadherence to evidence-based treatment may be explained by patient preference, surgeon subspecialty, surgeon era of practice or other variables. Further research to understand the reasons behind this nonadherence would help to promote conformity in the surgical community across all specialties and adherence to evidence-based approaches.

Prophylaxis and treatment of infection in long bones using an antibiotic-loaded ceramic coating with interlocking intramedullary nails.

Background: The study was done (1) to report on our recent experience with antibiotic-loaded calcium sulfate-coated interlocking intramedullary nails (CS-IMN) for infection prevention or infection eradication and (2) to compare the efficacy of CS-IMN versus antibiotic-loaded polymethylmethacrylate-coated IMN (PMMA-IMN) for infection eradication. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of consecutive patients who underwent a limb salvage procedure for infection cure or infection prevention with PMMA-IMN or CS-IMN. We reviewed patient demographics, host-type, pre-operative infecting organisms, intraoperative cultures, as well as our main outcomes: infection control rate, achievement of union/fusion, and limb salvage. Results: 33 patients were treated with CS-IMN: 9 patients with goal of infection cure and 24 patients for infection prophylaxis. When used for infection prophylaxis, there was a 100 % ( 24 / 24 patients) prevention of infection rate, 95.5 % union rate ( 21 / 22 patients), and 100 % ( 24 / 24  patients) limb salvage rate. Nine patients were treated with CS-IMN to eradicate infection and were compared to a cohort of 28 patients who were treated with PMMA-IMN. The infection was eradicated in 7 / 9 patients (77.8 %) in the CS-IMN group versus 21/26 patients (80 %) in the PMMA-IMN group ( p = 0.44 ). Bone union/fusion was achieved in 8 / 9 patients (88.9 %) in the CS-IMN group versus 21/24 patients (87.5 %) in the PMMA-IMN group ( p = 0.11 ). The limb salvage rate in the CS-IMN group was 100 % ( 9 / 9  patients) versus 89 % ( 25 / 28  patients) in the PMMA-IMN group. Conclusions: CS-IMN are safe and easy to use, and we have therefore expended our indications for them. CS-IMN are very effective at infection prophylaxis in high-risk cases where infection is suspected. Early analysis suggests that CS-IMN are non-inferior to PMMA-IMN for infection eradication. This is our preliminary data that show this novel technique to be safe in a small cohort and may be as effective as the more established method. Future studies with larger cohorts of patients will be required to confirm these findings.