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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Asian J Neurosurg 2017; 12(03): 441-446
DOI: 10.4103/1793-5482.180924
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Outcome and management of spinal tuberculosis according to severity at a tertiary referral center

Prasad Bodapati
Department of Neurosurgery, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
,
Ramesh Vemula
Department of Neurosurgery, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
,
Ameen Mohammad
Department of Neurosurgery, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
,
Alladi Mohan
1   Department of Medicine, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
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Objective: Anti-tuberculosis (TB) treatment remains the mainstay of treatment of spinal TB. There is a lack of consensus regarding the timing of interventional procedures and surgery in the patients with spinal TB. This study aims to prospectively study the clinical outcome and management in patients presenting with spinal TB at our tertiary referral center and teaching hospital. Methods: Data were collected prospectively from 48 patients treated for spinal TB presenting to us from August 2011 to December 2012. All the patients were followed-up for the duration of anti-TB treatment. Results: The categorization of patients into different management groups was based on the clinical and radiological findings at the time of diagnosis. The patients with mild disease (n = 23) were successfully managed with anti-TB treatment alone. The other 25 patients needed an intervention either in the form of pigtail catheter drainage of the paravertebral collection (n = 18) or an extensive surgical debridement followed by the fusion techniques (n = 7). All the patients responded well to the treatment, and there were no significant complications in any of the patients. It had been observed that various stages of spinal TB demand different approaches for the treatment in the form of either chemotherapy alone, chemotherapy with pigtail drainage of the paravertebral collection, or surgery in conjunction with chemotherapy. Conclusions: Judicious use of pigtail drainage and surgical intervention in addition to anti TB treatment can be rewarding in the patients with spinal TB.

Key-words:

Paravertebral collection - pigtail drainage - spinal tuberculosis - surgery for spinal tuberculosis


Publication History

Article published online:
20 September 2022

© 2017. Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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