Hip aspiration: a cost-effective and accurate method of evaluating the potentially infected hip prosthesis.

Abstract

The accuracy of fluoroscopy-guided hip aspiration in the diagnosis of infection in hip prostheses was evaluated. Results from 147 preoperative aspiration cultures were compared with results of operative cultures. The relative costs of aspiration and nuclear medicine studies were also compared. With the operative culture results as the standard, sensitivity of hip aspiration was 92.8% and specificity was 91.7%. The negative and positive predictive values were 99.2% and 54.2%, respectively. Aspiration arthrography costs approximately 20% as much as complementary technetium sulfur colloid-indium-111 granulocyte scans, the most accurate nuclear medicine study used to evaluate potentially infected hip prostheses. Hip aspiration is an accurate and cost-effective method of evaluating the potentially infected hip prosthesis.