My mother has got a spine surgery at D8,D9 dorsal levels ,anterior debridement + cage & evacuation of epidural Abscess. Dr thinks she has Spine TB & hence TB drug therapy is continuous from one week before surgery to now , but biopsy report was negative ,now Dr says to go for another biopsy of same pus which may be dry now to a different laboratory .I know it is a challenge for us now .Surgery has done but still unsure whether it is TB or pyogenic infection. Please can you make your comment according to your experience. Thank you
Dr. Leo, is diagnosis of spinal stenosis base on MRI Readings accurate enough for surgery or should a total physical examination of the patient must be done?
Low back pain: Think of tuberculosis, 2012 Tuberculosis presenting as deep vein thrombosis, 1999 Given that up to 10% of the western world has latent tuberculosis, the fact that people do get the active disease (responsible for more deaths than any other infectuous disease), and that risk factors make it much more likely that tb would turn active (alcohol, corticosteroids, suppressed immune system. Increased dietary iron has 3.5x risk progressing to active disease), that tb is completely ignored in differential diagnosis of any illness in the west is concerning. Even more concerning is that the skin test used shows false negative in active disease. Another stat is that in the west, most people only get diagnosed posthumously (two thirds).
