Gonococcal arthritis (disseminated gonococcal infection)

Neisseria gonorrhoeae was once the most common cause of septic arthritis in the United States, but the prevalence of gonorrhea has plummeted in the United States since the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Gonorrhea may be poised to become more troublesome, because gonococcal resistance to fluoroquinolones and other antibiotics is increasing, and many contemporary physicians are unfamiliar with the musculoskeletal manifestations of gonococcal infection. Gonorrhea generally causes either a suppurative arthritis resembling septic arthritis caused by other bacteria, or a distinct syndrome of disseminated gonococcal infection, with tenosynovitis, skin lesions, and polyarthralgias, rather than frank arthritis.