The research team notes that patients are often given a fixed 1 gram dose instead of the recommended dosing of 15 mg/kg. The authors conducted a retrospective study of 7,638 primary TJA patients at a single center, 1,828 of whom resceived vancomycin prophylaxis and 5,810 of whom received cefazolin monotherapy. They found that 2 percent (n = 32) of patients receiving vancomycin experienced periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), compared to 1 percent (n = 62) of cefazolin patients. Overall, 94 percent (1,726 of 1,828) of patients received a fixed 1 g dose of vancomycin, of whom 64 percent (1,105 of 1,726) were considered underdosed. No patients with adequate dosing or overdosing of vancomycin developed PJI with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Learn more...
