My Dad Had Knee Surgery In July And Three Weeks

Posted on Wed, 21 Nov 2018

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 Answered on

Last reviewed on

Question : My dad had knee surgery in July and three weeks later in his phone he ended up with E. coli so they did a wash out and debridement supposedly got rid of that. He was in hospital 4 days and was transferred to assisted living. Within 3 weeks at docs appt he acquired another infection in his wound and they scheduled surgery to take place three days later. This one ended up being Mrsa in his wound. I believe they Removed his hardware and replaced with spacers. The infection never went away even with antibiotics so he was transferred another hospital where they did surgery to remove spacers and replace with different spacers. He was getting sick and vomiting so they put in a feeding tube and he got c diff and then pneumonia and passed away. Is this all possible ?

Answered by Dr. Vaishalee Punj (4 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Yes it is possible

Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome to Ask A Doctor service.

I have reviewed your query and here is my advice.

From your description, he probably suffered clostridium difficile due to antibiotic use. This infection can have high fatality rates. Clostridium difficile can result in intestinal infection (colitis). Pneumonia seems to be hospital-acquired. These two infections are usually resistant to antibiotics.

So it is very much possible.

Hope it answers your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.
Dr Vaishalee

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Vaishalee Punj (32 minutes later)

How does one get e-Coli infection in their surgery site ? And after being diagnosed with mrsa is it usually the case that a doctor waits 3 days to do surgery? Wouldn’t it be worse in three days?

Answered by Dr. Vaishalee Punj (39 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
3 days wait could be to check if antibiotics will work

Detailed Answer:
Hi again

E coli is a common contaminant at surgical site. E coli may travel through blood or from wound contamination at surgical sites.

Usually if infection is found then surgeon decides to debride or remove the infected parts. If surgery is delayed then infection may get worse. Since it was an antibiotic resistant staph aureus, an earlier surgery could have helped. If patients conditions is not stable enough to undergo a surgery, then also surgery may be delayed.
The patient probably was hit by antibiotic use and resistant infections.

Dr Vaishalee

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar