[Tuberculosis of the head, neck and ear--a rare disease?]

Between 1980 and 1984 we treated 9 patients with tuberculosis of the lymph nodes, middle ear, parotid gland, larynx and sphenoid sinus. Diagnosis is difficult because of the unusual courses of the disease, the special pathways of infection and because tuberculosis is rarely suspected as the diagnosis. The importance of a combined conservative-surgical therapy is stressed.