- Acute inflammation of single joint, less than 2 weeks of duration
- Common causes include infectious arthritis, crystal diseases, AVN, infectious mononucleosis etc
- Establishing chronology of events is important in narrowing down diagnosis
- Physical examination of joint gives great insight about the nature of the problem whether is it intra-articular or extra-articular disease
- CBC, ESR, CRP, Uric acid can give us an insight to the nature of arthritis
- Whenever suspecting infection, tap is recommended
- Synovial fluid analysis is a handy investigation to confirm and start treatment accordingly
