INTRODUCTION Ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess is a very rare clinical condition with a relatively high morbidity and mortality. Due to the paucity of reported cases there is heterogeneity and no clear "gold standard" in the treatment of these patients. OBJECTIVE The authors report four consecutive patients with ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess treated with anterior cervical di...

  Epidural abscess of the spinal column is a rare condition that can be fatal if left untreated. It promptly progresses and can cause neurologic paralysis, urinary retention or cauda equina syndrome. Compromised immune system that occurs in patients with diabetes mellitus, AIDS, chronic renal failure, alcoholism, or cancer is a predisposing factor. It mostly occurs in adults. Here we would like...

Spinal cord glioblastoma (SG) accounts for 1.5% of all spinal tumors and has a poor prognosis with survival ranging from 2 to 26 months from presentation. A 57-year-old male presented with one week of paraparesis and contrasted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of an epidural enhancing thoracic mass suspicious for an epidural abscess. Intraoperative and pathologic findings revealed SG. ...

Case In rare cases, spinal epidural abscess involves the entire spine and can lead to neurological deficits and sepsis if treatment is delayed or suboptimal. A 65-year-old man was admitted with a diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. After admission, magnetic resonance imaging showed a spinal epidural abscess from the cervical to lumbar spine. Blood culture revealed Staphylococcus aureus. The pati...

RATIONALE Spinal epidural abscess is an uncommon complication in clinical practice. If the abscess is large enough, the patient will rapidly develop neurologic signs of spinal injury, and urgent neurosurgical intervention may be required. PATIENT CONCERNS Rapid and correct diagnosis and treatment is important for spinal epidural abscess complication. DIAGNOSES This report describes a cervic...

Spondylodiscitis is an uncommon infection of the intervertebral disc and vertebra with incidence between 0.2-2.4/100,000 annually. Severe cases can lead to spinal epidural abscess compressive neurological syndromes.

OBJECTIVE Spinal epidural abscess is a rare infectious disorder, often with a delayed diagnosis, and associated with significant morbidity and mortality rates. We conducted a retrospective study to define its clinical characteristics and to evaluate its prognostic factors. METHODS The medical charts of 46 patients (36 men and 10 women) with spinal epidural abscess over a 10-year period (from ...

Spinal osteomyelitis with epidural abscess is a rare disease. Most patients have 1 or more predisposing factors, such as impaired immune system secondary to diabetes mellitus, chemotherapy for cancer, immunological compromised disease, and chronic renal or hepatic impairment. We present a case of a physically steady young man without any predisposing risk factor who suffered from cervical osteo...

Although many patients with infective endocarditis (IE) complain of joint, muscle, and back pain, infections at these sights are rare. The incidence of spinal abscess in cervical spine complicating endocarditis is very rare. Although the surgical management is the mainstay of treatment, conservative treatment can get success in selected patients. We report a patient with cervical epidural absce...

We report two cases of diabetic patients with severe low back pain associated with retroperitoneal abscesses. In the first case, multiple retroperitoneal and spinal epidural abscesses were detected. Paraplegia due to the spinal epidural abscess was not relieved by drainage of the abscess and subsequent antibiotic therapy. In the second case, drainage of the retroperitoneal abscess and antibioti...