Osteomyelitis is a serious childhood disease characterized by purulent inflammation of bone tissue.
In the acute phase, the disease has a severe course, can cause dangerous complications, primarily metastatic pneumonia. Microbes from the bone through the vascular bed move to the lungs, which significantly worsens the patient’s condition and can even end in death.
In the future, if there was a strong destruction of the affected bone, deformations of the bones, their curvature and impaired growth rates may develop.
Considering these factors, osteomyelitis requires early detection and timely and correct treatment. Most often, patients initially received one or another type of injury (fracture, contusion, sprained ligaments), so they were primarily examined by traumatologists of various medical institutions.
Doctors conducted standard examinations (X-ray, ultrasound, etc.) and prescribed appropriate treatment: restriction of physical activity, elastic bandages, plaster mobilization, pain relief. However, despite the treatment, the children’s pain persisted or worsened, their temperature increased, and eventually they turned to pediatric surgeons.
“Summer traumatization of children contributes to an increase in the number of visits to the hospital with this disease. Injuries can be the background against which osteomyelitis can develop. If after some injuries, fractures, the child has pains that should have already passed or the temperature rises (even a small one – 37-37.5), this is not the norm. In this case, you should not delay a visit to the doctors to check the child. Then it is possible to avoid serious consequences,” said Kyrylo Lapshin, a pediatric surgeon at the Lviv Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital “OHMATDYT”.