Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about septic arthritis. And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero to finals.com in the infectious diseases section or in the infectious diseases section of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Septic arthritis is essentially where an infection occurs in a joint.

And this could be a native joint, meaning it's the person's original joint,

or it could be in a joint replacement.

For example, if they've had a hip replacement and that replacement becomes infected infection in a joint is an emergency as the infection

can quickly spread to destroy the joint or it can cause very severe systemic illness and sepsis and

potentially lead to death quite quickly.

Septic arthritis has a mortality of around 10%, so it needs to be recognised early and treated properly.

It's also a very common and important complication of joint replacement

and is something that orthopedic surgeons spend a lot of time worrying about when they replace joints.

It occurs in around 1% of straightforward hip or knee replacements.

And this percentage is higher when it's a revision surgery to correct a previous replacement that's gone wrong.

So what's the presentation?

Well usually septic arthritis only affects a single joint,

and often this is a knee,

and it presents with a rapid onset of a red, hot, swollen and painful joint.

There will be stiffness in the joint and reduce rains of motion,

and there can be systemic symptoms such as fever,

lethargy, and signs of sepsis. The most common causative organism is staphlococcus aureus,

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