of Coxiella burnetii and Description of an Assay for Detection A Case of Q Fever Prosthetic Joint Infection

oint replacement is a life-enhancing procedure performed onhundreds of thousands of patients in the United States eachyear.Whileprostheticjointinfection(PJI)occursinonlyapprox-imately2%ofpatientsfollowingkneearthroplasty(1),itisadev-astating complication. Accurate microbiologic diagnosis of PJI isimportant for directing appropriate management. There is noidentified pathogen in approximately 7% of PJI cases, frequentlyas a result of antecedent antimicrobial therapy, but occasionallydue to an inability to detect a pathogen by standard laboratorymethods (2).