TUBERCULOSIS OF THE LARGE LONG BONES OF THE EXTREMITIES

1. Shaft tuberculosis is essentially a chronic disease. In rare instances it may be fulminating and rapidly progressive. 2. The tubercle bacillus does not have a predilection for the growing bones of children, since, in nearly one-half of the cases reviewed, the disease started in patients over twenty years of age. 3. Of the large long bones, the tibia and the femur are most frequently affected. 4. Active pulmonary and other tuberculous lesions are frequently associated with shaft tuberculosis. 5. The treatment most frequently used was incision and drainage, due, in part, to early diagnosis of pyogenic osteomyelitis. 6. Saucerization and packing is an effective treatment in the presence of draining sinuses. 7. Curettage or saucerization and closure in cases without sinuses, practically and theoretically, is the treatment of choice in tuberculosis of the long bones of the extremities.