Joint sepsis as a complication of sero-negative arthritis.

Septic arthritis is a recognised complication of rheumatoid arthritis but has not been well described in sero-negative spondarthritis. We report 3 patients with sero-negative inflammatory joint disease who developed joint sepsis early in the course of the disease. In none was there a recognisable source of infection. Two cases were complicated by osteomyelitis and in one the sepsis has been recurrent over thirty years.