tuberculosis spondylitis (pott’s disease) in iran, evaluation of 40 cases

conclusion prompt diagnosis and treatment of skeletal tb are important to prevent serious bone and joint destruction and severe neurologic sequels. patients and methods in this study, epidemiologic aspects, clinical manifestations, laboratory tests and radiologic studies of cases with documented tuberculosis spondylitis in loghman hospital were evaluated. results of our patients, 25 (62.5%) were men and 15 (37.5%) were women. the oldest was 77 and the youngest was 17 years old. average of age was 47 years. involved vertebras were as follow: cervical 10%, thoracic 37.5%, thoracolumbar 27.5% and lumbar 25%. accompanying diseases were pulmonary tb (72%), tb pleural effusion (18%), paraspinal abscess (18%) and renal tb (2.5%). clinical manifestations were back pain in 100%, anorexia in 100%, fever in 90%, cough in 53% and limb paralysis in 2.5% of patients. erythrocyte sedimentation rate between 80-125 mm/h was detected in 40%, between 50-79 mm/h in 35%, between 20-49 mm/h in 15% and less than 20 mm/h in 10% of patients. objective because of increased incidence of tuberculosis (tb) in recent years, infective spondylitis is still a major problem in the world. symptoms of spinal tb are often nonspecific, and clinicians should be aware of this entity.