Influence of metalworking defect in knee cruciate ligament screws as a possible origin of infections

SPECTOR, M; GARCIA, GUILLERMO; PERETTI, LE

Procedia Material Sciences

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Año: 2015 vol. 9 p. 553 - 557

A bone mucormycosis outbreak in a clinic of Paraná city after arthroscopic knee anterior cruciate ligament reconstructionforced to suspend these interventions. The main candidates as the infection source were the implanted screws. These screws weremetallurgically analyzed. Microscopic defects like burrs and bending?s were found within the screw´s Allen heads. According toprevious report Spector et al. (2013), these defects protect microorganisms and make difficult to eliminate them. The aim of thiswork was to demonstrate the implication of metal working defects in the titanium fixing screws as a reservoir of contaminatedmachining oil which could be the possible transmitting vehicle in the outbreak of bone mucormycosis. The genetic relatedness ofthe isolated strains was established, favoring the hypothesis that contaminated screws might be the infection sources.