ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The objective of the study was to compare the functional outcomes and the complication rate of the patients with C. acnes contamination at the end of the primary reverse shoulder arthroplasty (RSA) surgery to those patients without C. acnes contamination. METHOD: A total of 162 patients were included. In all cases, skin and deep tissue cultures were obtained. A molecular typing characterization of the C. acnes strains was performed. Functional outcomes were assessed with the Constant score at the two and five year follow-up and all complications were also recorded. RESULTS: A total of 1380 cultures were obtained from the 162 primary RSA surgeries. Of those, 96 turned out to be positive for C. acnes. There were 25 patients with positive cultures for C. acnes. The overall postoperative Constant score was not significantly different between those patients having C. acnes-positive cultures and those with negative cultures at the two and five year follow-up (59.2 vs. 59.6 at two years, p 0.870, and 59.5 vs. 62.4 at five years, p 0.360). Patients with positive cultures presented a higher complication rate (p 0.001) with two infections, one revision surgery, and one dislocation. CONCLUSION: Patients ending up with C. acnes-positive cultures after primary shoulder arthroplasty surgery do not have worse clinical outcomes when compared to patients having negative cultures, but a greater number of complications were found in those patients with C. acnes-positive cultures.
