Pyogenic discitis in adolescence: a case report and review of the literature

Common causes of low back pain in children, such as muscle strain, herniated disk, spondylolysis, spondylolisthesis and Scheuermann’s kyphosis, are frequently diagnosed and given proper treatment. Due to the low incidence, a delay in diagnosis of less common causes of low back pain such as systemic disease (storage disease), neoplastic disease or infection (discitis) may result in long term disability (restriction of mobility and local kyphosis) (1) of the involved spine. In this case report, we describe the outcome and long term follow up of a 16 1 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, North Shore University Health Systems, University of Chicago, USA 2 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA 3 Department of Pediatrics, North Shore University Health Systems, Evanston USA