[Chronic post-traumatic osteitis].

Chronic osteomyelitis manifests itself predominantly by suppuration and sinus tract formation, radiologic alterations and increased sedimentation rate. Therapy of the productive-purulent form of p.o. consists in debridement, stability, irrigation drainage or local application of collagen-gentamycin or Taurolin, filling off the osseous defect by autogenous cancellous bone, soft tissue defects are closed by local pediculed muscle-flaps (gastro-cnemius/soleus) or by transplantation of muscle- (latissimus) or skinflaps (radialis) with microsurgical anastomosis. Less productive forms of posttraumatic osteomyelitis may be treated by debridement, stability, local antiinfectious therapy, bone transplantation (if needed) and treatment of soft tissue defects in a one-stage procedure. Amputation is indicated in an extremity involved with bone infection, when there is simultaneous uncorrectable circulatory disorder in combination with neurological defects.