Over 50,000 people in the United States have shoulder replacement surgery each year. Of these, it is reported that 0.4%-2.9% of anatomic total shoulder arthroplasties (aTSA) and 1-10% of reverse shoulder arthroplasties (rTSA) are complicated by periprosthetic joint infection (PJI).
Cutibacterium Acnes (C. acnes), an indolent organism found on the skin and in the sebaceous glands around the shoulder and back, makes the diagnosis of shoulder PJI particularly challenging. Multiple studies have shown that C. acnes can be isolated from deep cultures in up to 40% of patients without prior surgery undergoing primary total shoulder arthroplasty, although whether this indicates actual colonization of the joint or contamination is an area of debate.
A recent development in shoulder surgery is the use of hydrogen peroxide to decrease the C. acnes load in the deep dermis sebaceous glands, with the hope that this will prevent contamination of the joint during shoulder joint replacement surgery. Application of a widely commercially-available 3% topical Hydrogen peroxide in water solution in vitro has been found to completely eradicate C. acnes growth within 5 minutes and has been shown in clinical trials when used as part of the skin preparation to decrease the rate of positive cultures for C. acnes from 35% to 10% for deep cultures and from 34% to 17% for superficial dermal cultures. While these results show marked improvement compared to standard skin preparations, the 17% with positive dermal cultures is still concerning given the significant morbidity associated with a PJI.
Our hypothesis is that an additional application of hydrogen peroxide to the dermis itself, immediately following the skin incision, will be even more effective at eradicating this potential source of contamination deep in the joint.
