Two cases of femoral hydatidosis secondary to canine tapeworm treated by albendazole and prosthetic reconstruction.

Osseous hydatidosis is a very severe and recurrent complication of hydatidosis. The two cases reported here illustrate the severity of this invasive and destructive osseous parasitosis located at the femur and the hip joint, which required extensive resection and prosthetic reconstruction. The first case had a long history of liver and lung hydatidosis with a wide 'en-bloc' extra-articular resection of the right hip joint including the proximal femur; the second case had an 'en-bloc' total femur resection and total femur prosthesis. Preoperative and postoperative chemotherapy with albendazole was combined with surgery and was applied for many months. These two cases occurred several years after the incomplete treatments of recurrent lung or liver hydatidosis and might have been prevented if chemotherapy had been initially applied.