Demographic aspects of Paget's disease of bone in the Negev of southern Israel.

In a mainly retrospective but partly prospective survey of the period 1968-1993 in southern Israel, 61 cases of Paget's disease of bone were identified. Fifty six percent were of non-Afro-Asian origin and 44% originated from Afro-Asia, which is approximately the inverse of the ratio in the local general population. The largest single groups from non-Afro-Asia and Afro-Asia originated, from Romania and Tunisia, respectively, and Australia and Argentina were also disproportionately prominent as countries of origin. Israel itself was the origin of few patients. All the patients were Jews except for one Bedouin Arab, which is far different from the distribution of Bedouins and Jews in both the surveyed area and the hospital population. The differences between these groups numerically and against the background local population may well have been statistically significant had the circumstances enabled greater randomness in the collection of the data analyzed. It is surmised that in southern Israel the prevalence of Paget's disease of bone is about 1%, similar to that in southern Europe.