Today, Marie Anneberg Brahe defended her PhD dissertation entitled "Periprosthetic Joint Infection after Knee Arthroplasty - Trend, Validity, and Risk Factors". It is based on four studies on periprosthetic joint infection in the knee.

Knee replacement surgery helps people with severe arthritis regain mobility, but in some cases, it can lead to a serious infection—periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). This can result in multiple surgeries, poor knee function, and even death. In this PhD research, we explored the risk of PJI, its evolving trends, how knee registries can better track PJI, and how diabetes and socioeconomic factors influence infection risk.

We found that acute PJI cases have increased in recent decades and discovered that PJI is often underreported in national knee surgery registries. To address this, we developed a more effective method to improve PJI detection in registry data. Using this method, we identified which patients with diabetes are at higher risk of PJI and uncovered socioeconomic inequalities in PJI risk.

The summary is written by the PhD student.