Bacterial Colonization of Wounds and Sepsis in Total Hip Arthroplasty

This is a study of 658 consecutive total hip arthroplasty procedures in which cultures were taken at surgery. Cultures were positive in 195: 111 occurred in 437 hips that had not been previously operated on and eighty-four in 221 hips that had undergone previous operation. To date, there have been fourteen infections: seven superficial, and seven deep. Preliminary data indicate that the presence of a positive culture in a hip previously operated on may be significant, even though a deep wound infection may later yield a different organism. Organisms belonging to the family Micrococcaceae appear to predominate in deep wound infections.