Background:

Early diagnosis of septic arthritis and osteomyelitis in children is essential to prevent long term sequelae. The diagnosis for these orthopaedic emergencies can be difficult and challenging especially in infants. Standard blood tests used for diagnosis have a low specificity. Procalcitonin (PCT) is significantly elevated in bacterial infections and remains low in viral infections and inflammatory conditions. Good positive predictive values for PCT have been obtained in various studies used in paediatric infections, but limited studies have examined the role in orthopaedic infections.