Spinal tuberculosis: diagnosis and management

The involvement of spinal column reportedly occurs in less than 1% of all tuberculosis (TB) patients. Spinal TB is a very dangerous type of skeletal TB as it can be associated with neurologic deficit because of compression of adjacent neural structures and significant spinal deformity. Therefore, the early diagnosis and management of spinal TB has special importance to prevent these serious complications. Therefore, the present study was aimed at conducting a comprehensive narrative review and analysis of all the papers available for us published during 1990 to 2011 to extract current trends in diagnosis and medical or surgical treatment of spinal TB. Although the development of more accurate imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and advanced surgical techniques have made the early diagnosis and management of spinal TB much easier, these are still very challenging topics. In this review we aimed to discuss diagnosis and management of spinal TB based on the studies with acceptable design, clearly explained results and justifiable conclusions. KEYWORDS: Spinal tuberculosis, Diagnosis, Treatment