[The late results of observing and treating patients with histiocytosis X and involvement of the jaw bones].

Eighty-one patients with histiocytosis X involving the jaw bones were followed up for 30 years; the patients presented with involvement of the lungs, skin, mucosa, other bones of the skeleton, and diabetes insipidus signs. In 58 of the 81 patients eosinophilic granuloma eventuated in a generalized process: chronic xanthomatosis or Hand-Schüller-Christian's disease. This fact permits a conclusion that eosinophilic granuloma is an initial stage of the same systemic disease, histiocytosis X, and that subdivision of histiocytosis X into 3 forms, accepted in literature, is undesirable, for it erroneously presents the essence of the process. Therapeutic recommendations are given.