Objective To investigate the association between tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)and lymphotoxin α(LTα) gene single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and susceptibility to extremity post-traumatic osteomyelitis in Chinese population.Methods We used SNaPshot genotyping method to detect genotypes of 6 TNF-α gene SNP sites (rs1799964,rs1800630,rs1799724,rs1800750,rs1800629 and rs361525) and 1 LT α gene SNP site of rs909253 in 189 patients with post-traunatic osteomyelitis and 200 healthy controls.Genetic models were applied to investigate the potential links between the above-mentioned SNPs and risks of developing post-traumatic osteomyelitis.Results Outcomes revealed that the frequency of mutant allele C of rs909253 in the patient group was statistically higher than that in healthy controls (54.23％ versus 45.00％,P =0.010,OR =1.448,95％ CI 1.092 ～ 1.921).Significant correlations were found between rs909253 and risk of developing post-traumatic osteomyelitis by recessive model (CC versus CT+TT,P=0.012,OR=1.868,95％CI1.150～3.035) and homozygote model (CCversusTT,P=0.021,OR=2.016,95％ CI 1.111～3.658).The frequency of CC (29.63％) in the patient group was higher than that in the control group (17.50％).With regard to rs1800629 site of TNF-oα gene,we only found that the frequency of mutant allele A (4.23％) in the patient group was statistically lower than that(7.75％) in the control group (P=0.040,OR=0.526,95％ CI 0.283 ～0.978).Conclusions LTαgeneSNP site rs909253 may be linked with elevated risk of developing post-traumatic osteomyelitis in Chinese population.Mutant allele C may be a risk factor and people with genotype of CC may be a group at a higher risk of developing post-traumatic osteomyelitis in China.