Editorial Comment: Symposium: 2014 Musculoskeletal Infection Society.

Abstract

T he annual meeting of the Musculoskeletal Infection Society serves as a forum for presentation of novel research work, education, and promotion of fruitful discussion and collaboration among participants. The manuscripts included in this symposium, which were presented at the 2014 meeting, underwent formal, rigorous peer review and present interesting and important findings spanning the topics of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of musculoskeletal infections. Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) is often challenging to diagnose with the currently available methods. The use of synovial fluid biomarkers, such as alpha-defensin, is an exciting new development that has shown promise in the diagnosis of PJI and provides consistent results regardless of the microorganisms present. This is important since microorganisms of low virulence may not produce an inflammatory response. On the other hand, a periprosthetic fracture may create such a response, thereby confounding the diagnostic attempt to determine if a PJI is also present. Administration of antibiotics is another confounding variable that reduces the laboratory values indicative of PJI and hinders diagnosis of this complication. These and other limitations of current diagnostic methods should always be kept in mind by the treating physicians [2]. Further research on developing new methods and improving the use of current ones is needed to refine the diagnostic process, but we are proud to present some important findings on these key issues in these proceedings. Treatment of musculoskeletal infections often includes the local administration of antimicrobials using various delivery vehicles, such as bone