Current Concepts of Fracture-Related Infection.

Abstract

Currently, fracture-related infection (FRI) still represents great challenges in front of orthopaedic surgeons, despite great advances that have been achieved regarding its diagnosis and treatment. Although both FRI and prosthetic joint infection (PJI) belong to osteoarticular infections and share similarities, FRI displays unique characteristics. Diagnosis of FRI is sometimes difficult owing to the nonspecific symptoms, and treatment is usually tricky, with a high risk of infection recurrence. In addition, the long disease course is associated with a significantly elevated risk of disability, both physically and psychologically. Moreover, such a disorder still poses heavy economic burdens to the patients, both personally and socially. Therefore, early diagnosis and reasonable treatment are the key issues for increasing the cure rate, decreasing the risks of infection relapse and disability, and improving the life quality and prognosis of the patients. In this review, we summarized the present concepts regarding the definition, epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of FRI.