Risk Factors for the Development of a Periprosthetic Joint Infection

Total joint replacement (TJR) is performed to treat joint arthrosis in an increasing number of patients due to the advances in arthroplasty techniques. According to the American Joint Replacement Registry, a total of 2.4 million hip and knee arthroplasties were performed in 2021 and the number of hip and knee arthroplasties performed exhibited an 18.3% increase compared to the previous year [1]. Along with the said increase in the number of TJRs, a parallel increase was observed in the rate of periprosthetic joint infections (PJI), the most feared complication of joint replacement. Therefore, determining the risk factors for PJI would be effective in reducing the rate of this increase. In this context, the risk factors of PJI can be divided into two groups, wherein the first group consists of patient-related factors and the second group consists of surgery-related factors. The latter can also be divided into three subgroups, i.e., preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative factors. This section will focus on patient—(Table 1) and surgery-related factors (Table 2) associated with PJI in detail.