• Sofus Vittrup, Maiken Stilling, Pelle Hanberg, Sara Kousgaard Tøstesen, Martin Bruun Knudsen, Josephine Olsen Kipp, and Mats Bue.
• Aarhus Denmark Microdialysis Research (ADMIRE), Orthopaedic Research Laboratory, Aarhus University Hospital, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, J112, Aarhus N 8200, Denmark. Electronic address: sofusvittrup@clin.au.dk.
• Injury. 2022 Aug 1; 53 (8): 2734-2740.

BackgroundCannulated screws are often used in the management of open lower extremity fractures. These fractures exhibit broad contamination profiles, necessitating empirical Gram-positive and Gram-negative antibiotic coverage. To ensure full antibiotic protection of the cannulated screw and the bone tissue, it is generally accepted that target tissue antibiotic concentrations, as a minimum, reach and remain above relevant epidemiological cut-off minimal inhibitory concentrations (T>MIC) for a sufficient amount of time.Methods8 female pigs were included. Microdialysis catheters were placed in the internal dead space of a cannulated screw placed in tibial cancellous bone, in tibial cancellous bone adjacent to the screw (mean distance to the screw: 3 mm), and in cancellous bone on the contralateral tibia. Following single-dose simultaneous intravenous administrations of vancomycin (1000 mg) and meropenem (1000 mg), microdialysates and plasma were dynamically sampled over 8 h. The applied MIC targets ranged from 1 to 4 µg/mL for vancomycin and 0.125-2 µg/mL for meropenem RESULTS: For both drugs, and for all MIC targets investigated (except for the high vancomycin target: 4 µg/mL), the internal dead space of the cannulated screw had the shortest T>MIC. At the low MIC targets T>MIC ranged between 88 and 449 min across sampling sites for vancomycin (1 µg/mL), and 148-406 min for meropenem (0.125 µg/mL). For the high MIC targets, T>MIC ranged between 3 and 446 min for vancomycin (4 μg/mL) and 17-181 min for meropenem (2 μg/mL). Vancomycin displayed longer T>MIC (2 and 4 μg/mL), higher area under the concentration time curve (AUC0-last) and peak drug concentration in the proximal tibial cancellous bone without a screw nearby. For meropenem, only the cancellous bone AUC0-last was significantly higher on the side with no screw.ConclusionWe found short T>MIC, particularly for the high MIC targets for vancomycin and meropenem, both inside the cannulated screw and in cancellous bone adjacent to the screw. The presence of a cannulated screw impaired the penetration of especially vancomycin into cancellous bone adjacent to the screw. More aggressive or different vancomycin and meropenem approaches may be considered to encompass contaminating differences and to ensure a theoretically more sufficient antibiotic protection of cannulated screws when used in the management of open lower extremity fractures.Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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