How do frozen and permanent histopathologic diagnoses compare for staged revision after periprosthetic hip infections?

Histopathologic analysis of frozen tissue samples is used to aid the intraoperative diagnosis of periprosthetic hip infections, but there are concerns about reliability. The purposes of this study were to determine the rate of concordance between diagnoses of infection made with frozen and permanent sections and to assess how discrepancies affected patient outcomes. A total of 282 samples from 62 patients were collected for frozen and permanent section analysis. There was concordance in 274 samples (97%). In 1 case, discrepancies led to retention of components during persistent infection, and the patient required further revision and antibiotics until infection free. Otherwise, discrepancies did not affect patient outcomes. There is good concordance between frozen and permanent sections for diagnosing periprosthetic hip infection and rarely do these discrepancies affect management.