2025 international consensus meeting on musculoskeletal infection: summary from the Biofilm workgroup on biofilm formation, persistence, and host-environment interactions
2025 international consensus meeting on musculoskeletal infection: summary from the Biofilm workgroup on biofilm formation, persistence, and host-environment interactions
Musculoskeletal infection (MSKI) remains a major problem after trauma and elective orthopedic surgery. Chronic MSKI is related to the formation of biofilm, which impairs diagnosis and effective treatments. Therefore, to understand and communicate global standards and best practices, the 2025 International Consensus Meeting (ICM) on MSKI created a Biofilm Section to address crucial aspects of biofilm biology pertaining to its mechanisms of drug resistance and immune evasion, and potential approaches to overcome them. This featured a 2-year process, with final voting and discussion on May 8-10, 2025, in Istanbul, Turkey. This Consensus Article is the effort of the Biofilm Basic Mechanisms Workgroup, which interpreted the results on ICM questions related to (1) the infectious microenvironment; (2) appropriate inocula in preclinical research; (3) biofilm behavior in infected tissues; and (4) synergy within biofilms and with other comorbidities. Collectively, we find that this field has the necessary research tools to discover the pathophysiology of orthopedic implant-associated biofilm development and maturation, perform clinically relevant studies in animal models, and elucidate mechanisms that allow opportunistic infections in compromised tissues and patients with other health issues.
Animals, Biofilms/growth & development, Humans, Musculoskeletal Diseases/microbiology, Prosthesis-Related Infections/microbiology, osteomyelitis, biofilm persistence, host-pathogen interactions, biofilm, biofilm formation, musculoskeletal infection (MSKI)
Muthukrishnan, Gowrishankar
437e4873-cbe9-44e0-a84c-3182d8e91875
Coraça-Huber, Débora C.
fb26264c-a646-46fb-bc5b-ab40f0b10ea5
Atkins, Gerald J.
7692a93c-6f06-4f6d-84b0-74cb0ce386d1
Abbaszadeh, Ahmad
1272619d-28c5-4fa2-9aa7-b53fd489c40d
Abedi, Armita A.
ed67992e-cf94-4f90-98e7-c8fb055e1d5d
Abuhussein, Ezzuddin
8822f551-17dc-4d72-9c99-fc292f8c648a
Bingham, Joshua S.
e31471b9-7c57-4c6c-81b6-53fd1827a013
Cichos, Kyle H.
c1067ac0-446e-4fcf-ad3f-f3f6c89514a6
Coenye, Tom
de2d4149-c84c-4dbb-a7ae-c5da5dc29c7f
Drago, Lorenzo
3c94dc7e-d448-491a-907b-f493b5496d2c
Hamilton, John
85366437-d08d-4621-9281-11db9b21aea6
Hickok, Noreen J.
f8395539-d811-4c06-a7ae-6247952c29f3
Iannotti, Ferdinando
374f9ef4-06e6-4863-8d57-dc75649cbd0c
Jennings, Jessica Amber
e9fe2a5f-f261-4cfb-8922-a77de4772dff
Jensen, Louise Kruse
a9cb8e27-5ec3-4bf0-8c12-1c2c3db1e5cc
Li, Bingyun
b4596e61-ec58-4656-8d4f-24ec9eec4873
Manzary, Mojieb
e456e88f-f829-4af0-913b-feed54c411fa
Moriarty, T. Fintan
9ff9ed1b-dced-4674-9de4-efd53f2f2bdc
McDonald, Katya
6e0f23db-e49e-4886-bc87-7b78e7eeb483
Nishitani, Kohei
0b530a89-3b2d-435c-b2a6-1b2abcf25205
Norton, Nicholas
14bdade9-e59d-4b4a-a87f-ddb74d86d725
Oral, Ebru
347456c8-f704-4a17-a6f1-30ae7d17bd66
Parvizi, Javad M.
4e5f758e-7820-400c-9cf9-fcb5a47a5534
Raafat, Dina
33e4bee8-6f72-45cc-bf21-6b2efcc7f9a0
Saeed, Kordo
87cb67e5-71e8-4759-bf23-2ea00ebd8b39
Sallai, Imre
377e27b1-ace9-4cb7-9ca7-7505b291779d
Schwarz, Edward M.
8955f820-c649-4c5c-8ef5-e96f472eb38d
Siverino, Claudia
18ec4c6b-00e9-47f8-862c-88b0fb6143f7
Sekar, Amita
c4119bf3-6fcf-4463-812e-5de57ece8190
Tate, Jermiah
aa484da5-d1c0-45dd-9fba-471afba659a1
Trobos, Margarita
05839b43-06d8-429f-b480-68708aeea27b
Tubbs, Andie
e737d517-b4ee-402d-bd13-b5f6f2001067
8 January 2026
Muthukrishnan, Gowrishankar
437e4873-cbe9-44e0-a84c-3182d8e91875
Coraça-Huber, Débora C.
fb26264c-a646-46fb-bc5b-ab40f0b10ea5
Atkins, Gerald J.
7692a93c-6f06-4f6d-84b0-74cb0ce386d1
Abbaszadeh, Ahmad
1272619d-28c5-4fa2-9aa7-b53fd489c40d
Abedi, Armita A.
ed67992e-cf94-4f90-98e7-c8fb055e1d5d
Abuhussein, Ezzuddin
8822f551-17dc-4d72-9c99-fc292f8c648a
Bingham, Joshua S.
e31471b9-7c57-4c6c-81b6-53fd1827a013
Cichos, Kyle H.
c1067ac0-446e-4fcf-ad3f-f3f6c89514a6
Coenye, Tom
de2d4149-c84c-4dbb-a7ae-c5da5dc29c7f
Drago, Lorenzo
3c94dc7e-d448-491a-907b-f493b5496d2c
Hamilton, John
85366437-d08d-4621-9281-11db9b21aea6
Hickok, Noreen J.
f8395539-d811-4c06-a7ae-6247952c29f3
Iannotti, Ferdinando
374f9ef4-06e6-4863-8d57-dc75649cbd0c
Jennings, Jessica Amber
e9fe2a5f-f261-4cfb-8922-a77de4772dff
Jensen, Louise Kruse
a9cb8e27-5ec3-4bf0-8c12-1c2c3db1e5cc
Li, Bingyun
b4596e61-ec58-4656-8d4f-24ec9eec4873
Manzary, Mojieb
e456e88f-f829-4af0-913b-feed54c411fa
Moriarty, T. Fintan
9ff9ed1b-dced-4674-9de4-efd53f2f2bdc
McDonald, Katya
6e0f23db-e49e-4886-bc87-7b78e7eeb483
Nishitani, Kohei
0b530a89-3b2d-435c-b2a6-1b2abcf25205
Norton, Nicholas
14bdade9-e59d-4b4a-a87f-ddb74d86d725
Oral, Ebru
347456c8-f704-4a17-a6f1-30ae7d17bd66
Parvizi, Javad M.
4e5f758e-7820-400c-9cf9-fcb5a47a5534
Raafat, Dina
33e4bee8-6f72-45cc-bf21-6b2efcc7f9a0
Saeed, Kordo
87cb67e5-71e8-4759-bf23-2ea00ebd8b39
Sallai, Imre
377e27b1-ace9-4cb7-9ca7-7505b291779d
Schwarz, Edward M.
8955f820-c649-4c5c-8ef5-e96f472eb38d
Siverino, Claudia
18ec4c6b-00e9-47f8-862c-88b0fb6143f7
Sekar, Amita
c4119bf3-6fcf-4463-812e-5de57ece8190
Tate, Jermiah
aa484da5-d1c0-45dd-9fba-471afba659a1
Trobos, Margarita
05839b43-06d8-429f-b480-68708aeea27b
Tubbs, Andie
e737d517-b4ee-402d-bd13-b5f6f2001067