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Changes made in the 8th edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals included new recommendations for the amount of space for breeding female mice. Adopting the new recommendations required, in essence, the elimination of trio breeding practices for all institutions. Both public opinion and published data did not readily support the new recommendations. In response, the National Jewish Health Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee established a program to directly compare the effects of breeding format on mouse pup survival and growth. Our study showed an overall parity between trio and pairwise breeding formats on the survival and growth of the litters, suggesting that the housing recommendations for breeding female mice as stated in the current Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals should be reconsidered.

Educational Objectives As a result of reading this article, physicians should be able to: 1. Understand contemporary postoperative infection rates for primary total hip arthroplasty (THA). 2. Understand the epidemiology of bacterial species responsible for postoperative primary THA infections. 3. Review current interventions to decrease the primary THA infection rate. 4. Assess the volume and quality of data in the current orthopedics literature regarding primary THA infections. The number of primary total hip arthroplasties (THAs) performed in the United States each year continues to climb, as does the incidence of infectious complications. The changing profile of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has made preventing and treating primary THA infections increasingly complex. The goal of this review was to summarize (1) the published data concerning the risk of surgical site infection (SSI) after primary THA by type of bacteria and (2) the effect of potentially modifying factors. The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, EMBASE, Web of Science, and PubMed were searched. Studies dated between 2001 and 2011 examining primary THA in adults were included. Meta-analysis of the collected data was performed. The pooled SSI rate was 2.5% (95% confidence interval [Cl], 1.4%–4.4%; P P Staphylococcus aureus SSI was 0.5% (95% Cl, 0.2%–1.5%; P P =.003; n=2180). All these results had significant heterogeneity. The postoperative risk of SSI was significantly associated with intraoperative bacterial surgical wound contamination (pooled rate ratio, 2.5; 95% Cl, 1.4%–4.6%; P =.001; n=19,049). [ Orthopedics. 2013; 37(4):257–265.]