Acute Haematogenous Osteomyelitis in Childhood

Abstract

Summary: Twenty eight children (21 males, 7 females), aged between 15 days and Il years with acute haematogenous osteomyelitis, were studied, over a period of three ycars. Twenty-two (75%) of the cases were under 3 years of age. Haemoglobin genotype was recorded in 21 cases. Fifteen of these cases (71.5%) had Hb SS; 3 (14.2%) had Hb AA; 2 (9.5%) had Hb AS and in the remaining one case (4-8%), the haemoglobin genotype was AC. There were 34 bacterial isolates either from blood and/or pus. Ten were due to Staphylococcus, 5 to Proteus, 3 to Klebsiella, 2 to E. Coli while the 14 isolates due to Salmonella species were obtained from patients with Hb SS disease. The results have shown that acute haematogenous osteomyelitis was mainly an early childhood disease and that children with abnormal haemoglobin were more prone than their counter parts with normal haemoglobin, with Salmonella being the predominant causative agent in this group.