To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of daptomycin in the treatment of hip and knee periprosthetic joint infections (PJIs).
We completed a retrospective review of all patients in our institution (n=20) who were treated with daptomycin for hip or knee PJI, over the 36 month period from January 2008 until December 2010.
Infection types included eight cases with acute infections, nine cases of chronic infection and three cases of positive intraoperative cultures. Methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus was the most frequent microorganism found in surgical cultures (40%). Our patients, on average, received daptomycin as salvage therapy at a dose of 6.6 mg/kg/day for 44.9 days. The overall success rate was 78.6% after a median follow-up period of 20 months. In the subgroup of patients with acute PJIs, treatment with daptomycin, debridement and implant retention was successful in all cases. We found two cases of severe side effects (one case of acute renal failure due to massive rhabdomyolysis and one of eosinophilic pneumonia) and two cases of asymptomatic transient creatine phosphokinase (CPK) level elevation.
The combination of high daptomycin doses with an adequate surgical approach could be a viable alternative in cases of difficult-to-treat Gram-positive PJIs. Due to the risk of potentially serious adverse events, serum CPK level should be closely monitored.