Obturator Internus Muscle Abscess in Children

Fever and a progressively limping gait in a 9-year-old boy

“…Most patients with OIM abscesses described in the literature Fig. 2 Follow-up MRI scan of the right hip shows minimal residual inflammation and resolution of the abscess ( arrow) after completion of the 6-week antibiotic course were adequately treated with 3 to 6 weeks of appropriate antibiotic therapy [10]. In our case, we administered 3 weeks of intravenous antibiotic therapy followed by 3 weeks oral antibiotic therapy.…”

“…We searched the English medical literature using Medline and found a total of 24 cases of OIM pyomyositis, including our case, in children and young adults reported so far. Most of the patients with OIM pyomyositis presented with hip pain, limping gait, and fever and were initially tentatively diagnosed as septic hip, as was our patient [1,2,5,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,15]. There were 24 patients including 12 boys and 9 girls and three without mentioning sex (age range 3-17 years, mean age 9.3±3.7 years).…”

“…In our review, blood or abscess culture results showed S. aureus as the pathogen in 15 of 21 cases (71%) of OIM pyomyositis. Other pathogens included Streptococcus pyogenes [9], Enterococcus faecalis [12], and Neisseria gonorrhoeae [9,10].…”

Pyomyositis: a limping diagnosis

“…Presenting symptoms include a painful hip, fever, limp and inability to fully bear weight. It has been described by others, and is underlined by our current experience, that pyomyositis can mimic septic arthritis [5,8]. The causative organism is usually Staphylococcus aureus, but other bacteria have been implicated [3,5,8].…”

Pyomyositis in children: report of three cases and review of the literature

“…Since 1998, about one hundred articles, most of them case reports on pyomyositis as complication of critical conditions, have been indexed in Medline. Pyomyositis in otherwise healthy children is exceptional [3,5].…”