Association of tumor necrosis factor-α gene polymorphism with osteoarticular tuberculosis prognosis in a Hebei population
INTRODUCTION
China is one of the 22 countries with a high-burden of tuberculosis (TB) and has the second highest number of TB patients in the world (World Health Organization, 2013). Osteoarticular TB (OA-TB) is one of the main types of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. There are about 30 million TB patients, of which 1-3% have skeletal involvement (Tuli, 2002), with causes that are directly related to poverty (Cheng, 2011).