Abstract
Septic arthritis is a painful infection in a joint induced by an infectious agent. Release of proteolytic enzyme from bacteria and inflammatory cells may cause articular cartilage damage within hours. So, prompt diagnosis and treatment are essential to prevent significant morbidity and mortality. Although arthrocentesis is commonly used to make an accurate diagnosis of septic arthritis, imaging modalities are helpful to evaluate the disease. Whole-body or three-phase bone scintigraphy has been widely used in diagnosis of septic arthritis. Although its findings are nonspecific, it is a sensitive study to diagnose septic arthritis and detect associated bone erosion or osteomyelitis under suspicion of infectious condition. A total of six cases of septic arthritis are presented in this chapter: four bacteria-confirmed and one bacteria-suspected infections and one tuberculous infection. Each case contains a closely correlated combination of images of three-phase bone scintigraphy, simple radiography, MRI, and/or PET/CT.
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© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Han, Y.M. (2022). Septic Arthritis. In: Yang, SO., Oh, S.W., Choi, Y.Y., Ryu, JS. (eds) Atlas of Nuclear Medicine in Musculoskeletal System. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2677-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2677-8_2
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