Imaging of Other Orthopaedic Infections in the Appendicular Skeleton

Infective organisms can enter bone by direct contamination through penetrating wounds, spread from adjacent infected structures or via the circulation as a consequence of septicaemic illness. Haematogenous osteomyelitis is most likely to occur in young foals but may also occur in adult horses. The radiographic changes associated with bone infection are often neither specific nor definitive. This is because bone has only a limited capacity to react to pathological insult, which is either to proliferate or be resorbed. The proportions in which these two processes occur and the resulting radiographic patterns which develop are as likely to be a reflection of the site of the lesion and the anatomy of ...