● Received: September 5, 2014 ● Revised: November 2, 2014 ● Accepted: November 4, 2014 Corresponding Author: Sim Sai Tin, MD Medical Center, Shantou, China Tel: +866624132436, Fax: +866624132436 E-mail: [email protected] ◯∝This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/3.0/) whic...

DESCRIPTION A 26-year-old-man of Indian descent was referred to our rheumatology unit with 6 months of lower-back pain. He had lived in the UK for 5 years, travelling intermittently to holiday in India. His general practitioner detected a C-reactive protein of 55 mg/l and erythrocyte sedimentation rate of 95 mm/h and referred with a possible ‘spondyloarthritis’. The patient gave a history of ba...

ous pathogen in many parts of the world being increasingly responsible for disease. Worldwide 7–10 million people have tuberculosis; in 1995 in the United States 22 201 new cases were reported. Neurotuberculosis accounts for about 5% of extrapulmonary cases of tuberculosis. It is a result of the bacteremic stage of the disease, during which tuberculous lesions (Rich’s foci) may form in the meni...

OBJECT To compare the clinical efficacy of titanium mesh cages and autogenous iliac bone graft to restore vertebral height through posterior approach in patients with thoracic and lumbar spinal tuberculosis. METHOD 59 patients with spinal tuberculosis underwent interbody fusion and internal fixation through posterior approach in our department from January 2011 to December 2013. In group A, 3...

Acute respiratory failure is more common in miliary tuberculosis than in tuberculous bronchopneumonia and also has a worse prognosis. Chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure is frequent after both spinal tuberculosis and surgical treatments for pulmonary tuberculosis. It may develop insidiously or present acutely, for instance, during a chest infection. Hypoventilation appears during REM sleep ...

We reviewed 31 cases (19 males and 12 females) of spinal tuberculosis seen at the National Tuberculosis Centre from 1985 to 1989. The mean age was 35.4 years. The predominant clinical feature was backache (90.3%), while neurological features were found in 30.9%. An elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (in 80.0%) and a positive Mantoux test (in 70.9%) served as useful investigations. Spinal x...

Tuberculosis is known to affect almost every organ in the body, but its manifestations in the head and neck region are quite rare. A tuberculous retropharyngeal abscess is a very rare condition and can be the cause of oropharyngeal dysphagia. It is usually secondary to tuberculosis of the spine and has the potential of significant morbidity and mortality if not treated appropriately. We present...

tuberculous spondylitis is not an uncommon disease of the spine. near one percent of all cases of spinal tuberculosis (tb) involves craniocervical junction. hypoglossal nerve palsy is not an uncommon neurological finding, but isolated involvement of the hypoglossal nerve is rare and limited to case reports or small case series. here, we report a case of craniocervical junction tuberculosis pres...

Paraplegia occurred in eight of 17 patients with central nervous system tuberculosis. In six of these paraplegia was the presenting feature. Paraplegia may complicate tuberculous meningitis, or vertebral tuberculosis, but it may also occur, as in three of our cases, as a primary localised spinal tuberculous radiculomyelitis. These cases are presented in relation to the concept that paraplegia c...