Biological and biomechanical effects of vancomycin and meropenem in acrylic bone cement.

Antibiotic-loaded bone cement is extensively used in joint arthroplasty, but increasing bacteria resistance against common antibiotics has lead to a demand for alternative drugs. However, bone cement containing new additives must be characterized both biologically and mechanically. This study evaluated elution kinetics, antibacterial activity, and mechanical properties for cement loaded with vancomycin and/or meropenem.

Vancomycin and meropenem in acrylic cement: elution kinetics of in vitro bactericidal action.

The Authors present a paper with a dual goal: in vitro evaluation of the elution of vancomycin and monitoring of its bactericidal action when the antibiotic is used in acrylic cement. Discs of cement with different concentrations of vancomycin alone or combined with meropenem were prepared. To assess the elution of vancomycin the discs were kept in physiological solution and periodically sampled for five weeks.

Identification and genetic characterisation of orthopaedic Staphylococcus isolates collected in Italy by automated EcoRI ribotyping.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility to use automated EcoRI ribotyping to address, during the same analysis, both identification and genetic characterisation of 38 Staphylococcus aureus and 64 coagulase-negative staphylococci collected from surgical injuries. The ribotyping identification results confirmed those obtained using the API Staph system for 96% of the isolates. All strains were successfully genotyped and the ribotyping discriminatory power, calculated using the Simpson's index of discrimination, was very high for both groups of staphylococci tested.