Infections Associated With Prosthetic Devices

Nearly every physician in the mid 1980s has at least one patient with a prostheticsomething. Prosthetic hip and knee replacement has revolutionized the practice of orthopedics; at least 150,000 prosthetic joint implantations are performed annually in the United States. Ocular lens implants, pacemakers, prosthetic heart valves, vascular grafts, and peritoneal dialysis catheters are commonplace. But for every advance in medicine a price must be paid. This book reminds us of the occasional infection that develops in association with prostheses. Infections involving almost every type of prosthesis (except totally artificial hearts) are discussed in this compact volume. Particularly illuminating are those chapters devoted to cerebrospinal fluid shunts, prosthetic heart valves, dialysis shunts and catheters, and orthopedic devices. A discussion of infections associated with urinary tract catheters (indwelling and intermittent) is extremely thorough, yet admirably lucid. Somewhat less helpful are those sections that deal more with the surgical than the infectious aspects