No abstract

Successful management of intramedullary long bone osteomyelitis remains a challenge for both surgeons and patients. Patients are often immune-compromised and have endured multiple surgeries. Treatment principles include antibiotic administration (systemically +/- locally), surgical debridement of the infection site and stabilization. Since their description in 2002, antibiotic coated nails have become part of the armamentarium for the treatment of osteomyelitis allowing both local elution of antibiotics and stabilization of a debrided long bone. Limitations to their utilization have remained, in part from the technical difficulty of fabrication and MRI artifacts. We describe a new surgical technique of fabrication that has the advantages of being simple, reproducible, with an end product free of MRI artifacts.

Successful management of intramedullary long bone osteomyelitis remains a challenge for both surgeons and patients. Patients are often immune compromised and have endured multiple surgeries. Treatment principles include antibiotic administration (systemically ± locally), surgical debridement of the infection site, and stabilization. Since their description in 2002, antibiotic-coated nails have become part of the armamentarium for the treatment of osteomyelitis allowing both local elution of antibiotics and stabilization of a debrided long bone. Limitations to their utilization have remained, in part from the technical difficulty of fabrication and magnetic resonance imaging artifacts. We describe a new surgical technique of fabrication that has the advantages of being simple, reproducible, with an end product free of magnetic resonance imaging artifacts.

No abstract