Integrated Information System for Multi-criteria Management of Orthopedic Infections

The detection of an infection with or without the presence of prosthesis (mainly hip and knee) remains today very delicate. Primarily, the difficulty of differential diagnosis between mechanical loosening and septic loosening of prosthesis comes from the torpid nature of chronic infections. Secondly, as the diagnosis of orthopedic infections is a multidisciplinary approach that generally lasts for months (not to say years for complex cases), it tends to generate a huge amount of heterogeneous data that is scattered in the hospital environment. Inadequate or late diagnosis as well as inadequate treatment (such as unsuitable antibiotherapy) due to poor initial diagnosis may be the cause of disabling pain, lasting damage and complications for the patient, not to mention the significant direct and indirect costs to the patient and society. In this paper, we present a complete platform for the diagnosis of osteoarticular prosthesis infections, incorporating innovative modules from both imaging processes and molecular biology processes, an intelligent data management system including multidisciplinary, mobile and adaptive user interfaces, while ensuring full traceability of diagnosis.