The diagnostic utility of gram stain microscopy in paediatric septic arthritis – a retrospective case study

Methods We conducted a retrospective review of all patients of 16 years and under that underwent aspiration with or without washout of suspected septic joint from January 2005 to March 2011. Cases were defined as any patient with an organism identified on microbiology culture. The association between clinical features, laboratory results, operative findings and gram stain examination were compared against final culture results with chi-square test (for categorical data) and Mann Whitney test (for nonparametric data).