Treatment of prosthetic joint infections due to Propionibacterium

We read with interest the recent paper by Jacobs et al. (Acta Orthopaedica Sept 2015) concerning treatment of pros- thetic joint infections caused by Propionibacterium acnes. The authors suggest from their findings that combination ther- apy with rifampicin is not more effective than therapy without rifampicin. They cite two of our papers, one of which they use to support their statement “the successful eradication of Propionibacterium biofilms with rifampicin in in-vitro stud- ies” (Bayston et al. 2007). In fact, our paper compared activity against P. acnes biofilms of penicillin, linezolid or linezolid plus rifampicin.