The development of joint-replacement surgery was a great step for modern medicine.

Years ago, older people whose knees or hips became painful and stiff due to arthritis had few options beyond medication, heat treatment and pure gumption to get along.

Today, high-tech prosthetics can duplicate the function of a healthy, natural joint. More than 1 million joint-replacement surgeries are performed each year in the U-S, and a successful outcome can mean years of improved mobility and pain relief.

Of course, there are potential complications to joint replacement.

One of them is the possibility an infection will develop in the joint, something that happens in 1 or 2 percent of total knee and hip replacements.

It’s a serious matter, particularly because the pathogen most commonly involved in these infections is a strain of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacterium.

The development process for these infections isn’t well understood, but an article published by Journal of Infectious Diseases provides some insights.

In the study, researchers found that the staph bacteria formed biofilms. This is a situation where individual bacteria clump together and produce a slime-like coating that shields the colony from therapeutic drugs.

What’s more, it seems the fluid surrounding the joint provides an environment conducive to biofilm formation.

The researchers believe their findings help explain why joint infections are difficult to treat.

The results also suggest that the effectiveness of antibiotic drugs could be improved if they were administered along with enzymes that can break down the proteins contained in biofilm coatings.

This concept still needs to be tested and confirmed, but it sounds plausible.

If these enzymes work, then medicine will have taken one more step on the very long road toward beating arthritis once and for all.