Diluted povidone-iodine irrigation prior to wound closure in primary and revision total joint arthroplasty of hip and knee: a review of the evidence.

Overview

Periprosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) of the Hip and of the Knee is a tremendous complication associated with high patient morbidity, cost, and increased health care resource utilization. Over the last few years, several perioperative strategies have been developed in the hopes of reducing the risk of early superficial and deep surgical site infection (SSI). One of the most performed intraoperative treatments to reduce the risk of SSI in total joint arthroplasty is the use of dilute povidone-iodine (DPI) irrigation prior to wound closure. For this reason, we believed a systematic review of the literature was needed to better understand the current literature on the efficacy of dilute betadine in reducing PJI. The search terms for this systematic review was performed for keywords "betadine", "povidone-iodine", "lavage", "irrigation" and "arthroplasty". A total of six studies were included, four of these reported the outcome of primary total joint arthroplasty, and two of these reported the outcome of revision total joint arthroplasty. Some studies reported that the use of DPI is effective to reduce the incidence of infective complications, meanwhile other studies did not find differences when DPI was used. More studies must be addressed to provide the efficacy of DPI irrigation.