1954 Volume 4 Issue 1 Pages 55-59
The joint tuberculosis was treated in our clinic after three principles, plaster of gypsum fixation for children, arthrodesis for adult, and osteotomy for contractured joints in bad position. We have 29 cases of tuberculosis of the hip joint followed up more than 2 years and 8 cases of knee joint tuberculosis too, treated non-operatively;
(1) Not a case of hip joint tuberculosis was healed with movability. The date of healing by way of arthrodesis, are shorter than those of treated by non operative means. Surgery, therefore, should be done on a proper occasion. There is a growing tendency to make sinuses when the osteotomy for contracture of the hip was done but failed to complete osseous ankylosis.
(2) In the knee joint, on the contrary, we have had the cases healed with good movement, but these are exclusively limited to the tuberctulosis of synovial membrane in children.
As to the duration of fixation in cases of children, more than 3 years are required whatever the general and joints condition are very good.
