Pseudoseptic Arthritis : A Case Series and Review of the Literature

Abstract EN

Purpose.

Pseudoseptic arthritis is an acute inflammatory monoarthritis with a sterile synovial gram stain and culture.

Pseudoseptic arthritis has been previously described in the literature in a variety of settings including rheumatoid arthritis and microcrystalline disease.

Despite pseudoseptic arthritis being a described entity, there is little published data on this topic with no published reports since 1992.

Methods.

This paper was a retrospective chart review over a 20-year period that identified all rheumatology inpatient consultations at our tertiary rural hospital for pseudoseptic arthritis.

Results.

We identified 10 patients with pseudoseptic arthritis and presented 5 of those cases in this paper.

Majority of these patients had known autoimmune inflammatory arthritis or microcrystalline inflammatory arthritis.

Conclusion.

Pseudoseptic arthritis is a syndrome that should be in the differential diagnosis with patients with long standing inflammatory condition who present with an acute monoarthritis with no known bacterial source for septic arthritis.