EXPERIMENTAL-MODELS OF BONE AND PROSTHETIC JOINT INFECTIONS

Bone and joint infections are difficult to cure. The difficulty is rel ated to the presence of bacteria adherent to foreign material in many cases and also to the limited activity of antibiotics in infected bone s. Clinical trials are difficult to design because of the heterogeneit y of the disease and the number of factors that could influence the th erapeutic response. To control for these multiple variables, attempts have been made to develop reliable animal models of osteomyelitis and prosthetic joint infections that closely mimic the different infection s seen in orthopedic surgery and that allow evaluation of the efficacy of surgical procedures as well as local or systemic antibiotic therap y. These models will continue to provide us information on the pathoge nesis and management of such infections.