Chronic Back Pain Proven to Be Spinal Tuberculosis - A report of 2 cases

The progression of spinal tuberculosis is usually slow and insidious, and its main symptom, backache, is nonspecific. Considerable delay in diagnosis may occur before an infectious process is considered. Even when a diagnosis of spinal tuberculosis is considered, it may be difficult to confirm. Radiological findings indicative of tuberculosis are involvement of the vertebral bodies on either side of the disc, subligamentous spread, abscess formation and collection and expansion of granulation tissue adjacent to the vertebral body, relative sparing of the disc space and calcification within a paravertebral abscess. We report two patients with spinal tuberculosis who had nonspecific backache and received a delayed diagnosis for several months or years.