Effects of air tourniquet on the antibiotics concentration, in bone marrow, injected just before the start of operation.

Infection is one of the most serious complications after artificial arthroplasty. In order to establish the effective prevention for after operative infection, we measured the serum and bone marrow blood cefmetazole (CMZ) concentration time dependently (1 g CMZ, one shot). Furthermore, we studied the effect of air tourniquet on CMZ transmit into bone marrow blood. Thirteen knees with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) were included in the study. As a control group, 11 hips with total hip arthroplasty (THA) were also included. In TKA, air tourniquet was used during operation in all cases. Just before the start of the operation, 1 g CMZ was injected intravenously (one shot). Subsequently we sampled peripheral blood and bone marrow blood time dependently. Cefmetazole concentration was measured with HPLC. In the THA group, serum and bone marrow blood CMZ concentration showed almost the same time-dependent change. On the other hand, in the TKA group we could not detect CMZ in bone marrow blood in cases where CMZ was injected within 8 min before starting use of an air tourniquet. If CMZ was injected more than 10 min before starting use of the air tourniquet, CMZ concentration in bone marrow blood was much lower than minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for Staphylococcus aureus; but after releasing the air tourniquet, CMZ concentration in bone marrow blood was higher than MIC for S. aureus. These data suggested that our injection method is effective for prevention of infection both during and just after operation in the THA but in the TKA, CMZ should be injected more than 10 min before starting to use the air tourniquet.