In childhood, acute leukemia commonly involves the musculoskeletal system and it can mimic orthopedic pathologies at the beginning of the disease. History and physical examination findings may be misleading. Hematological and radiological evaluations may not be helpful in the diagnosis.
Our case is a 3 years old boy applied to us with swelling and pain in his right elbow. He was diagnosed as elbow septic arthritis and treated as septic arthritis for 6 weeks. After the end of treatment, patient’s physical examination and laboratory findings were normal, but control x-ray presented abnormal periosteal reaction and osteoporosis. He was searched again and diagnosed as acute leukemia by bone marrow evaluation.
The case was presented to express once again; that acute leukemia must be kept in mind in the differential diagnosis of children with orthopedic problems.
Keywords: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, periosteal reaction, septic arthritis