Tuberculosis of the hand. Case report.

Three patients with tuberculosis of the hand are reported. In each patient the onset and course of the disease was insidious and the diagnosis was obscured by lack of systemic symptoms and the absence of other foci of infection. The diagnosis was established only after open biopsy and synovial tissue culture. The wounds healed without complications even prior to appropriate chemotherapy. Combined conservative and surgical treatment resulted in definitive cure of the local manifestation in two of the patients.