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Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staffYour doctor conducts a physical exam to better understand your signs and symptoms if he or she suspects you may have osteomyelitis. Your doctor may feel the area around the affected bone for any tenderness, swelling or warmth.
Your doctor may order a combination of tests and procedures to diagnose osteomyelitis and to determine what type of infection you have, including:
- Blood tests. Blood tests may reveal elevated levels of white blood cells and other factors that may indicate that your body is fighting an infection. If your osteomyelitis was caused by an infection in the blood, tests may reveal what germs are to blame. No blood test exists that tells your doctor whether you do or do not have osteomyelitis. However, blood tests do give clues about your diagnosis, which your doctor uses to decide what further tests and procedures you may need.
- X-rays. X-rays can reveal damage to your bone. However, damage may not be visible until osteomyelitis has been present for several weeks. More-detailed imaging tests may be necessary if your osteomyelitis has developed more recently.
- Other imaging procedures. If your doctor can't get a clear picture of the affected bone using X-ray, he or she may order other imaging procedures, such as computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or a bone scan.
- Bone biopsy. During a biopsy, a surgeon removes a small piece of your infected bone for analysis in a laboratory. The laboratory determines what type of bacteria or other pathogen is infecting your bone. Your doctor uses that information to determine your treatment. A biopsy can be performed as an open biopsy, meaning that it requires anesthesia and surgery to access the bone. In some situations, a surgeon inserts a long needle into your skin and your bone to take a biopsy (fine-needle aspiration). This procedure requires local anesthetics to numb the area where the needle is inserted.
