ARTHR-IS: 100 Cases Included

Fifteen hospitals have been activated, six in Spain, three in France, three in the Netherlands, two in Italy, and one in Germany.

To date, 100 cases have already been included, which represents 89% of the expected cases in the already activated centers and 66% of cases on the whole project. In addition, 230 controls have also been recruited. In several centers the data collection has been closed and the team is actively working on monitoring and closing queries from the eCRFs. The coordinating team of ARTHR-IS project is immensely thankful to all collaborators, for their work and interest.

In these difficult times the ARTHR-IS team would like to send their thoughts to all hospitals facing the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About ARTHR-IS

Arthroplasties’ infections due to Staphylococcus aureus (ARTHR-IS): Due to the aging population, the number of arthroplasties is expected to grow in the next few years. Staphylococcus aureus (SA) is a primary cause of prosthesis joint infection (PJI) with serious consequences. This microorganism is frequently associated with treatment failure, hospitalizations and need of prosthesis removal, leading to an important morbidity and an increase in healthcare costs.

ARTHR-IS is a retrospective multi-center study which aims to estimate the burden of SA-PJI after a hip or knee arthroplasy and their risk factors through a case-control design.

For this study, 20 hospitals were selected in 6 European countries in order to include 150 cases of SA-PJI and 450 controls. This project is a collaborative initiative between the Hospital Virgen Macarena in Seville and GlaxoSmithKline as academic and EFPIA partners respectively. The results of this study will provide critical information to develop strategies to prevent and treat SA-PJI and reduce treatment failures. Also the results from ARTHR-IS study will help in the design of future clinical trials to prevent SA-PJI prosthesis infection by providing reliable estimates on the incidence of this important problem and the subsequent burden on health care services.