Modern Plasma Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery: A Brief History and Outlook.

Modern plasma medicine is a field of medical research combining plasma physics, life sciences, and clinical medicine. It aims to achieve direct application of physical plasma on or in the human body for therapeutic purposes. In medical contexts, the term plasma denotes the liquid component of blood, while in the physical sciences, it refers to ionized gas-also known as the fourth state of matter alongside solid, liquid, and gas.

The mononuclear phagocyte system obscures the accurate diagnosis of infected joint replacements.

Introduction: Diagnosing infected joint replacements relies heavily on assessing the neutrophil response to bacteria. Bacteria form biofilms on joint replacements. Biofilms are sessile bacterial communities encased in a protective extracellular matrix, making them notoriously difficult to culture, remarkably tolerant to antibiotics, and able to evade phagocytosis.

Detecting contamination events during robotic total joint arthroplasty.

Background: Robot-assisted total joint arthroplasty (robotic-TJA) has become more widespread over the last 20 years due to higher patient satisfaction and reduced complications. However, robotic TJA may have longer operative times and increased operating room traffic, which are known risk factors for contamination events. Contamination of surgical instruments may be contact- or airborne-related with documented scalpel blade contamination rates up to 9%.

Host and microbial characteristics associated with recurrent prosthetic joint infections.

Approximately 20% of patients after resection arthroplasty and antibiotic spacer placement for prosthetic joint infection develop repeat infections, requiring an additional antibiotic spacer before definitive reimplantation. The host and bacterial characteristics associated with the development of recurrent infection is poorly understood. A case-control study was conducted for 106 patients with intention to treat by two-stage revision arthroplasty for prosthetic joint infection at a single institution between 2009 and 2020.