Introduction. Osteomyelitis is a severe orthopaedic complication which is difficult to diagnose and treat. Previous experimental\nstudies mainly focussed on evaluating osteomyelitis in the presence of an implant or used a sclerosing agent to promote infection\nonset. In contrast, we focused on the longitudinal assessment of a nonimplant related osteomyelitis. Methods. An intramedullary\ntibial infection with S. aureus was established in NZW rabbits. Clinical and haematological infection status was evaluated\nweekly, combined with X-ray radiographs, biweekly injections of calcium binding fluorophores, and postmortem micro-CT.The\ndevelopment of the infection was assessed by micro-PET at consecutive time points using 18F-FDG as an infection tracer. Results.\nThe intramedullary contamination of the rabbit tibia resulted in an osteomyelitis. Haematological parameters confirmed infection\nin mainly the first postoperative weeks (CRP at the first 5 postoperative weeks, leucocyte differentiation at the second and sixth\npostoperative weeks, and ESR on the second postoperative week only), while micro-PET was able to detect the infection from the\nfirst post-operative week onward until the end of the study. Conclusions.This study shows that osteomyelitis in the rabbit can be\ninduced without use of an implant or sclerosing agent.The sequential follow-up indicates that the diagnostic value of each infection\nparameter is time point dependant. Furthermore, fromall parameters used, the diagnostic value of 18F-FDGmicro-PET is themost\nversatile to assess the presence of an orthopaedic infection in this model.
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