What if Situation?

Group 3 has a skeletally mature large animal with a penetrating wound.  

Clinical Signs:
* Compromise of the skin due to some "external" penetration
* Lameness
* Edema and Inflammation
* Potential Sepsis

Management Plan:
* Radiographs
* Blood Work up
* Regional Profusion with antibiotics (under anesthesia)
* Culture and sensitivity test
* Systemic antibiotics
* Curettage to remove any dead bone, if necessary

Lab Findings: 
* Increase in fibrinogen
* If chronic, we probably would see a bone sequestra

Difference from Case 3
* If we had done a culture from the blood, then we may have not seen a pure positive culture in it, therefore, we could have ruled out septic arthritis
* In this what if case, the patient is older than our original case 3.  Therefore the common bone abnormalities are different.  In the older animal you get bone sequestration due to lower limb wounds.  In younger animals, it is due to acute osteomyelitis of the growth plate (physis) that occurs in the septicaemic animal. 
* We also would expect to see more bone developmental abnormalities in younger animals because they are still growing.