A Retrospective Study of Chronic Osteomyelitis in a Tertiary Care Centre of Eastern Nepal

Chronic osteomyelitis is a leading cause of morbidity in orthopaedic practice in Nepal. Various factors like health service inaccessibility, inadequate treatment, malnutrition, poverty, and to some extent antibiotic resistance contribute to disease progression from acute osteomyelitis to chronic osteomyelitis in this region of the world. A significant number of children continue to suffer from chronic osteomyelitis making it one of the most commonly presenting orthopaedic problems in Nepal.

Retrospective study of past five years of patients admitting under orthopaedics department with confirmed diagnosis of chronic osteomyelitis were included in the study. Cause of chronic osteomyelitis was noted of all patients. Various other variables like limb involvement and procedure performed were taken into account. All the data processed in SPSS programme and various statistical test applied.

Our study consists of male more than female, most commonly involved age group was 11–20 years and more than 80% were below 30 yrs of age. Involvement of right side of the limb is more. Most commonly involved bone was femur and tibia, most of them had spontaneous onset but other causes (traumatic and post operative) are also cosiderable, most commonly done procedure was decompression, two of them underwent tibilization of fibula.

In our study most common cause being spontaneous but other causes (traumatic and post operative) can't be ignored. Proper and aggressive management of chronic osteomyelitis leads to better outcome. Much improvement is needed in management of open fractures and to minimize post-operative osteomyelitis.