Children's osteomyelitis - symptomatology and treatment

Osteomyelitis is a serious bone disease, when all the structures - both themselves, and the bone marrow, and periosteum - affected by infection, they and surrounding soft tissues appear purulent-necrotic education.

Osteomyelitis in a child is most often noted at the age of up to a year.

The infection begins at the ends of long bones, since it is there that the arteries form loops with a slow blood flow - an ideal medium for the development and vital activity of bacteria brought along with blood.

Causes of osteomyelitis in children

Infection can begin with the fact that the blood brings the bacteria into the bone tissue. Also an impetus to pyogenic processes may be an infection that has entered the body through a wound surface, or an infection that has passed from inflamed soft tissues to bone.

When a trauma accompanied by a wound, the pathogens are several different microorganisms, one of which can be a dangerous Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Hematogenous (transmitted with blood flow) osteomyelitis originates after an infectious disease:

• purulent sore throat;
• otitis media;
• suppuration in the patient's teeth;
• panaricium;
• furunculosis;
• inflammation of the umbilical ring in infants;
• pneumonia, and so on.

Osteomyelitis in newborns can develop due to the weak resistance of the organism at the age of up to a year.

Symptoms of osteomyelitis

In the first days after infection, there are no signs of disease. In the future, all its manifestations depend on how old the patient is, what his immunity is, what kind the bacteria has been infected, as well as from the site of the affected bone and the degree of its swelling with inflammatory process.

Symptoms of osteomyelitis:

• very high temperature;
• chills;
• cardiopalmus;
• severe pain in a specific area of ​​the bone;
• around the diseased bone begins swelling and reddening of soft tissues.

In posttraumatic osteomyelitis in children, the following symptoms are present:

• wound or injury, accompanied by suppuration of the wound surface;
• edema, redness of soft tissues;
• severe pain in the damaged area;
• temperature.

Acute manifestations of the disease can eventually become chronic, when signs of intoxication disappear, the temperature drops, and the pains are not so intense. The focus of inflammation around the bone is covered with purulent fistula, which suggests that the disease has passed into a chronic stage, when periods of decline and exacerbation will alternate.

Relapse begins at the moment when the fistulas close, the pus no longer stands out, but goes to the cavity that formed around the infected bone.

In newborns, the disease primarily affects the cartilaginous tissue.

What you need to pay attention to:

• the child is worried for no reason;
• skin pale;
• refuses to eat;
• temperature;
• the child is sluggish;
• sometimes vomiting and diarrhea begin;
• the child protects the limb and screams in pain, if it is touched;
• The skin around the affected area is hyperemic, and within a week the hyperemia spreads to the entire limb;
• a blood test shows leukocytosis, blood releases hemoculture (microbial culture);

If parents are careless about the health of the child and do not turn to the doctor on time, the abscesses and fistulas can spread all over the body of the baby.

Treatment of osteomyelitis

At the end of the XIX century, surgeons had to resort to amputation of the affected limb or to a radical trepanation, when the canal bone chisel was opened up to the bone marrow and manually cleared of purulent-necrotic content.

Now the treatment of osteomyelitis in children is performed by various radical methods:

1. The body must get rid of the infection-causing agent of the disease. In the fight against osteomyelitis use antibiotics, for example, gentamicin or fuzidin. More simple antibiotics, for example, penicillin, can not cope with such a powerful infection.
2. At the same time, the body is cleansed of intoxication - the plasma is transfused or the blood is purified by hemosorption, passing through a column of activated charcoal or other sorbent.
3. Local treatment of the diseased part of the limb is performed with the help of physiotherapy and fixation with a plaster ganglion.
4. The immunity of the patient is increased by various methods, with the help of vitamins, stimulants of immunity.
5. In some cases, surgical intervention occurs - the bone undergoes trepanation, clears from purulent-necrotic discharge, fistulas are removed, drainage is established. In severe cases, the site of the bone is removed, which became the focus of the disease.

Over time, there will be irreversible changes in all internal organs. The consequences of osteomyelitis in newborns are especially terrible - a young organism can not defeat such strong bacteria, which will lead to surgical intervention or disability.

Even a surgical operation with drainage of purulent foci, intraosseous washing with antibiotics can not always save a limb.

Chronic osteomyelitis can be cured only through surgical intervention. It should be noted that it rarely ends lethally with such diseases.

Preventive actions

To prevent infection, you should follow simple rules:

1. All wounds, cuts, open fractures should be treated with alcohol or other antiseptic.
2. Do not touch open wound surfaces with dirty hands.
3. In case of any injuries accompanied by an open wound, consult a doctor.
4. All foci of chronic infection should undergo regular thorough sanitation.
5. Your health should be treated with care, observe the rules of basic safety and personal hygiene.

Prophylaxis of osteomyelitis in newborns helps to avoid severe consequences - it's not uncommon for small people to establish such strict hygiene rules. The simplest inflammation of the umbilical ring in a baby, which was not handled in time by a negligent mother, can lead to tragedy.

Untreated combed wounds after a mosquito bite, which the child touches with dirty hands, opens the gate to terrible microorganisms. A simple, seemingly suppuration in a sick tooth in a child, which parents did not pay attention to, can cross out his whole life.

Osteomyelitis does not tolerate a frivolous attitude, it lies in wait where you do not expect it. Do not neglect the simplest security measures - in time, contact your doctor for a quick diagnosis of the disease, so that you do not have to resort to a serious surgical procedure. Of course, in the modern world, osteomyelitis rarely becomes a cause for death, but it is worth remembering about the threat of becoming disabled.