Bacteriology of acute septic arthritis

In a study of septic arthritis infants formed the bulk of patients though, notably, neonates were not encountered. Gram-negative bacterial of the Salmonella species, especially Salmonella typhimurium and Klebsiella species were the most important cause of septic arthritis in infants. Staphylococcus aureus was also isolated. The combination of blood cultures and joint aspirate cultures resulted in very high rate (72 per cent) of bacteria isolation. It is strongly recommended that every effort should be made to obtain two bacteriological specimens for culture to improve bacteriological diagnosis of the disease.