Introduction: It is unknown whether intraoperative subcutaneous wound closing culture samples (WCCS) are useful to predict periprosthetic joint infection (PJI).
Method: Here we prospectively followed 167 out of a total of 175 consecutive patients with primary total hip (THR) or knee replacement (TKR) between 01/2002 and 12/2002 for a mean follow-up period of 5 years; of those patients, n = 159 (96.8%) underwent WCCS.
Results: The results showed a positive WCCS in n = 9 cases (5.8%). Nine patients developed postoperative wound complication and required revision surgery. Two patients developed signs of a deep periprosthetic infection; however, only one out of nine patients had initial positive WCCS.
Conclusion: Our results thus indicate that WCCS during primary joint replacement is not an appropriate predictive method to identify patients at risk for periprosthetic joint infections.