Primarily treated patients versus referred patients in the treatment of native septic arthritis of digits: a retrospective comparative study

Table 1 Demographics of the patients and inclusion criteria

			Primary patients (n = 11)	Referred patients (n = 34)	p-value
Age^a (year)			48.5 (3.47)	60.5 (4.02)	0.001
Sex (male/female)			4/7	18/16	0.491
Immunocompetent disease or immunosuppressive drug (yes/no)			7/4	20/14	1.0
DIP/PIP/Thumb			8/3/0	19/12/3	0.120
Penetration event (traumatic/iatrogenic/no)			9/0/2	16/13/5	0.048
Specific clinical history			1 (animal bite)	2 (animal bite)	1.0
Delay from symptom onset to treatment in the first visiting hospital^b (day)			9 (7–14) [2–21]	21 (7–28) [3–70]	0.042
Duration of empiric antibiotics in the previous hospital^c (day)			–	7.5 (5–10.25) [3–28]	–
Delay from symptom onset to treatment in the present hospital^c (day)			–	38 (21–91) [13–168]	–
Surgical drainage at the first visiting hospital (yes/no)			11/0	8/26	< 0.001
Culture (+)	Pus (+)	Neutrophils ≥10/HPF	2	17	–
	Pus (+)	Neutrophils < 10/HPF	5	7
	Pus (−)	Neutrophils ≥10/HPF	–	2
	Pus (−)	Neutrophils < 10/HPF	3	1
Culture (−)	Pus (+)	Neutrophils ≥10/HPF	–	5
	Pus (+)	Neutrophils < 10/HPF	1	2
	Pus (−)	Neutrophils ≥10/HPF	–	–

Significant values shown in bold
DIP distal interphalangeal, PIP proximal interphalangeal, HPF high power field
^aStudent’s t-test. Mean (standard deviation) presented
^bMann-Whitney U-test. Median (25th–75th percentiles) [range] presented
^cNon-parametric distribution. Median (25th–75th percentiles) [range] presented

ISSN: 1471-2474