[Surgical treatment of coxitis tuberculosa (author's transl)].

Statistical data on the proportionate share of tuberculosis of the skeleton in tuberculotic diseases, vary between 1% and 4%, according to the Deutsches Zentralkomitee zur Bekämpfung der Tuberkulose, 1977 Hamburg; Kaster 1964. This type of tuberculosis mainly affects relatively young people up to 20 years of age and elderly people who are around 50. Tuberculosis of the skeleton is a secondary tuberculosis and usually has its primary focus in the lung or in the mediastinal lymph nodes. Spreading is effected via the blood stream. Infection of the bones and joints depends on the number and virulence of the pathogens and on the cellular defence reaction of the patient. Tuberculosis of the joints is a combination of arthritis and osteomyelitis. Modern chemotherapy enables healing of early stages of the infection, whereas late stages can be arrested in combination with surgery. Principally speaking, tuberculosis is on the retreat, although it is still the most frequent of all bacterial infectious diseases. The share of coxitis tubrculosa in the overall total of tuberculosis of the joints is 25%.