33 Years Old Woman Paraplegia Following Tuberculous Osteomyelitis

Aims: Tuberculosis is one of the oldest known diseases that involves human and one of the important causes of death all over the world. The cause of this disease is mycobacterium tuberculosis, which usually affects the lungs. Extra-pulmonary organs are affected in 1/3 of patients. One of these organs is bone and joints accounting for 10 to 35% of extra-pulmonary disease. The most common form of musculoskeletal involvement is spinal tuberculosis.
Patient Profile: The patient is 33 years old and has been referred to the emergency department with a primary complaint of abdominal pain and weakness of the lower limbs without respiratory involvement, and was eventually treated with the diagnosis of osteomyelitis tuberculosis.
Findings: Spinal tuberculosis is the most severe neurological complication of tuberculosis. The clinical manifestation of the disease is a form of physical symptoms such as fever, sweating, weight loss, pain and tenderness of the vertebrae and symptoms of pressure on the spinal cord. Regarding the move to severe paraplegia, surgery was performed on anterior orthopedic surgery.
Young age, proper nutrition, paraplegia associated with acute illness, slow incidence of neurological symptoms, adequate residual volume of the spinal canal and pushing out during surgery improve postoperative neurological improvement, but along with improved disease, prolonged paraplegia, Rapid progression of paraplegia, spinal cord malocclusion, and the presence of fibrosis and bone tissue (dry lesions) have the potential for worse neurological improvement.