Acute hematogenous osteomyelitis is often diagnosed by isolation of the organism from the blood and is caused most often by

Staphylococcus aureus is implicated in the majority of cases of acute osteomyelitis, which affects children most often. A superficial staphylococcal lesion frequently precedes the development of bone infection. In the pre-antibiotic era, S. pneumoniae was a common cause of acute osteomyelitis. Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Gram-negative organisms are implicated less frequently in this infection.