[Microbiological diagnosis of bone-joint infections]

Although infrequent, bone-joint infections are associated with difficult clinical and surgical management and severe complications. Diagnosis of bone-joint infections requires a multidisciplinary analysis of the biochemistry, radiology, nuclear medicine, microbiology, and histopathology results. Diagnosis must be rapid and correct so that appropriate medical and surgical treatment can be administered and serious complications avoided. Microbiology studies are indispensable when determining the causal agents and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Microbiological diagnosis of bone-joint infections is limited by the low sensitivity of Gram staining and difficult interpretation of culture results, particularly when enrichment broth is used (low number of microorganisms present in some infections).