Abstract
A 15-year-old girl was admitted to the Department of Orthopedics of our hospital because of a high fever, coughing, and left hip pain in September 2004. She was diagnosed as having diabetes mellitus after admission. Initially, the cause of the fever could not be determined, even after a lumbar vertebral MRI examination. Gallium scintigraphy detected a hot spot on the left side of the pelvic space, and the patient was diagnosed as having an abscess in the pelvic space based on abdominal CT and MRI findings. The patient was transferred to a different department, and percutaneous drainage of the abscess was performed ; Salmonella was isolated from cultures of the fluid taken from the abscess. The patient's symptoms disappeared, and she was discharged on post-drainage day 23. Since the patient's chief complaint was a left hip pain and digestive tract symptoms were not present, the abscess in the present case was difficult to diagnose. When investigating the cause of a fever of unknown origin, a whole-body examination may be necessary to rule out the possibility of a pelvic infection caused by Salmonella. Regarding the treatment strategy used in this case, low invasive percutaneous drainage of the abscess was useful.
