[The bacterial associations in maxillofacial actinomycosis]

A variety of clinical forms of actinomycosis, difficulties of its early diagnosis and particularly of the differential diagnosis between this condition and tuberculosis, nocardiosis, aspergillosis necessitate the development of present-day methods for the early laboratory diagnosis of actinomycosis. Basing on the data on present-day methods for isolation of anaerobic and microaerobic diphtheroids, the authors characterize the bacterial associations occurring in maxillofacial actinomycosis and other odontogenic processes, discuss problems in isolation and identification of Actinomyces cultures.