Anterior spinal surgery alone in the surgical treatment of thoracolumbar spinal tuberculosis: a prospective study

Background: One of the important sites for extrapulmonary TB involvement is the skeleton. Tuberculous spondylitis (Pott’s disease) comprises 50-70% of the skeletal tuberculosis. Methods: In this case series study, we prospectively investigated the result of anterior surgery alone (anterior debridement, fusion and instrumentation) in the patients with spinal tuberculosis. The patients with immature skeleton, long segment disease or kyphosis more than 50° were excluded. All the cases were followed for at least 2 years (mean 31.4+/-6.4 months). Results: This study comprised of 23 (13 male and 10 female) cases with a mean age of 35.8 (SD=7.8) years old. Segmental kyphosis was corrected from +11.9° (SD=13.8°) preoperatively to -3.8° (SD=8.9°) after surgery that was mainly maintained at the last follow up visit. Bony unio‎n was achieved in all cases but one. Conclusions: Our results showed that in selected cases of tuberculous spondylitis, anterior surgery alone could be encouraging.