OBJECTIVE Infectious spinal disease is regarded as an infection by a specific organism that affects the vertebral body, intervertebral disc and adjacent perivertebral soft tissue. Its incidence seems to be increasing as a result of larger proportion of the older patients with chronic debilitating disease, the rise of intravenous drug abuser, and the increase in spinal procedure and surgery. In ...

Most surgery is designed to relieve compression of the spinal cord or spinal nerve roots. Reduction in the bore of the vertebral spinal or root canals (spinal stenosis) can occur in many conditions, and some patients have congenitally narrow canals. Osteophytic projections at the intervertebral joints (cervical spondylosis) are the commonest problem. Tumours, infection, trauma, disc protrusions...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings and the patterns of postoperative spinal infection according to the passage of time. METHODS Institutional review board approval was obtained, and informed consent was not obtained for the retrospective review of patients' medical records. A total of 43 patients (27 men and 16 women; mean age, 64) diagnosed with postoperat...

STUDY DESIGN Prospective, single-blinded, randomized study. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the efficacy of dilute betadine irrigation of spinal surgical wounds in prevention of postoperative wound infection. SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND Deep wound infection is a serious complication of spinal surgery that can jeopardize patient outcomes and increase costs. Povidoneiodine is a widely used antiseptic with ...

conclusions: the most common infectious episode among spinal cord injury patients was found to be urinary tract ınfection. e. coli was the most common microorganism isolated from urine samples. antibiotic use in the previous 2 weeks or 3 months, hospitalization during the last one-year and previous diagnosis of urinary tract ınfection were the risk factors identified for the development of infe...

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES As a result of reading this article, physicians should be able to:1.Understand the importance of early diagnosis and treatment of spinal infection in an effort to avoid devastating and crippling complications such as paralysis, painful deformity, and death.2.Understand current perceptions in the ongoing debate of whether operative or conventional treatment should be prefe...

C57BL/6 (B6) mice develop peripheral neuropathy post-LP-BM5 infection, a murine model of HIV-1 infection, along with the up-regulation of select spinal cord cytokines. We investigated if calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) contributed to the development of peripheral neuropathy by stimulating glial responses. An increased expression of lumbar spinal cord CGRP was observed in vivo, post-LP-BM...

OBJECTIVE There is considerable variation in practice regarding the use of prophylactic antibiotic therapy in spinal operations. To date, individual studies have not demonstrated a significant benefit for prophylactic antibiotic therapy in spinal operations. METHODS Systematic database searches for randomized prospective trials of prophylactic antibiotic therapy in spinal surgery, general neu...

We evaluated the role of gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) in protecting neurons from virus-induced injury following central nervous system infection. IFN-gamma(-/-) and IFN-gamma(+/+) mice of the resistant major histocompatibility complex (MHC) H-2(b) haplotype and intracerebrally infected with Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) cleared virus infection from anterior horn cell neurons. ...