Tuberculosis of the spine and spinal cord
Section snippets
Tuberculosis of the spine
Tuberculosis is an important problem in numerous underdeveloped regions, especially in individuals under the age of 20 years old.
In developed countries, tuberculosis has been reduced in the past 30 years, as a consequence of a precocious diagnosis, and mostly with anti-bacillary therapeutics.
However, in the 80's, there was an aggravation of the disease, due to the increase of the immigrant and prisoner's population and mostly the appearance of A.I.D.S.
The osteoarticular localizations represent
Tuberculosis of the spine particularities
Tuberculous spondylitis has some differential diagnostic problems with other spondylitis, although a certain number of particularities point to the specific etiology. The preferential localization is in the dorsal inferior segment (Fig. 2). The nature of the mycobacterium tuberculosis characterized by slow growth, propensity for an oxygen rich environment and the absence of proteolytic enzymes, determinate a particular development of the infectious process. The tuberculous osteomyelitis has in
Spinal cord tuberculosis
The tuberculous myelitis is more frequent as secondary lesion to osteomyelitis. In most cases, it appears in individuals under the age of 30 years, as opposite of arachnoiditis, which is more frequent in older people. Clinically and according to localization, symptoms emerge, from radicular pain to plegia. Tuberculosis may be located anywhere in the dura. It may be difficult to determinate if an intradural tuberculoma is intra or extramedullar (Fig. 19).
MR with gadolinium administration is the