Activation of Natural Killer Cells in Patients with Chronic Bone and Joint Infection due to Staphylococci Expressing or Not the Small Colony Variant Phenotype
Table 1
Patients with SCV+ ()
Patients with SCV− ()
Patients with other BJI ()
Total ()
P*
Age (median, years)
61 (52–79)
57 (47–69)
57 (33–69)
62 (47–71)
0.247
Male sex (, %)
6 (60)
5 (50)
4 (67)
15 (58)
0.653
Diabetes mellitus (, %)
4 (40)
1 (10)
2 (33)
7 (27)
0.303
Charlson’s Comorbidity Index >2 (, %)
6 (60)
5 (50)
3 (50)
17 (65)
0.656
Implant-associated infection (, %)
9 (90)
10 (100)
4 (67)
23 (89)
1
Recurrence (, %)
7 (70)
0 (0)
3 (50)
10 (39)
0.003
Delay between symptoms and bacterial diagnosis (median, days)
133 (61–209)
129 (13–88)
129 (32–904)
73 (24–177)
0.082
Plurimicrobial infection (, %)
1 (10)
2 (20)
1 (17)
4 (15)
1
Bacterial growth at 48 h (, %)
6 (60)
6 (60)
4 (80)
16 (64)
1
Delay between bacterial diagnosis and blood sampling (median, days)
93 (20–248)
52 (15–121)
202 (67–379)
87 (26–257)
0.356
Delay between last surgery and blood sampling (median, days)
47 (20–178)
52 (12–121)
202 (47–10523)
58 (20–214)
0.780
Note. SCV: small colony variant; BJI: bone and joint infection; *resulting from the comparison between SCV+ group and SCV− group.
