United States: According to studies, the likelihood of developing an infection in your newly replaced knee or hip increases if you are among the millions of Americans who regularly use cancer treatment.
Insights from Dr. Janet Conway’s Research
“We need to understand what factors may increase the risk for postoperative infections, given the number of people who receive total joint replacements each year and the cost, both physically and emotionally, for those who develop an infection and may need subsequent treatment,” stated Dr. Janet Conway, the study’s author.
Chemotherapy Raises post operation Infection Probability
She’s the head of bone and common infection at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore in addition to being an orthopedic surgeon at the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics.
further than 17,000 cases who had total knee, total hipsterism, or total shoulder reserves were followed up on by her platoon. They examined patients who had received chemotherapy no later than a year following total joint replacement surgery.
In comparison to people with replacement joints who had not had chemotherapy, the team discovered that receiving chemotherapy seemed to be associated with an increased risk of infection in the replaced joint.
Call for Enhanced Understanding and Preventive Measures
In a news release from Sinai Hospital, Conway stated, “We became curious about the potential effects of postoperative chemotherapy and the risk of joint infection as we saw cases in our own joint replacement patients.”
She continued, “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to thoroughly examine the possible risk of postoperative joint infection for patients who subsequently receive chemotherapy.” Conway thinks that further research on chemotherapy patients is important to discover a means of preventing needless infections in persons who have had joint replacements.