Response to: Surgery-Related Complications and Sequelae in Management of Tuberculosis of Spine

Article information

Asian Spine J. 2015;9(1):153-154

Publication date (electronic) : 2015 February 13

doi : https://doi.org/10.4184/asj.2015.9.1.153

Safak Ekinci ¹, Faruk Akyildiz ², Omer Ersen ³

¹Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Agri Military Hospital, Agri, Turkey.

²Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Malatya Military Hospital, Malatya, Turkey.

³Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Erzurum Military Hospital, Erzurum, Turkey.

Corresponding author: Safak Ekinci. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Agri Military Hospital, Agri, Turkey. Tel: +90-532-733-98-50, Fax: +90-472-215-27-47, safakekinci@yahoo.com

Received 2014 October 26; Revised 2014 October 26; Accepted 2014 October 28.

Dear Editor,

We read the published article by Moon et al. [1] entitled "Surgery-Related Complications and Sequelae in Management of Tuberculosis of Spine" with great interest. The authors said "surgery should be reserved only for the complicated cases of spinal tuberculosis in patients for whom surgery is definitely indicated" [1].

However, we think that some more points should be discussed regarding therapy planning.

Spinal tuberculosis is the most common and the worst form of tuberculosis lesions in the skeleton [2,3,4]. If the lesion is limited within the vertebrae, and if there are no complications, triple-drug anti-tuberculous chemotherapy can be the main therapy to treat tuberculosis [5]. However, with proper indications, surgical procedures are superior in the prevention of neurological deterioration, maintenance of stability, and early recovery [3,4,5,6].

Oguz et al. [4] reported 76 cases with spinal tuberculosis resulted in excellent recoveries without any neurological deterioration. As a result, they developed an effective classification system named GATA.

We believe that this new classification system should be considered as a practical guide for spinal tuberculosis treatment planning in all countries.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

References

1. Moon MS, Kim SS, Moon YW, Moon H, Kim SS. Surgery-related complications and sequelae in management of tuberculosis of spine. Asian Spine J 2014;8:435–445. 25187860.

2. Boachie-Adjei O, Squillante RG. Tuberculosis of the spine. Orthop Clin North Am 1996;27:95–103. 8539058.

3. Rezai AR, Lee M, Cooper PR, Errico TJ, Koslow M. Modern management of spinal tuberculosis. Neurosurgery 1995;36:87–97. 7708173.

4. Oguz E, Sehirlioglu A, Altinmakas M, et al. A new classification and guide for surgical treatment of spinal tuberculosis. Int Orthop 2008;32:127–133. 17206497.

5. Moon MS, Moon YW, Moon JL, Kim SS, Sun DH. Conservative treatment of tuberculosis of the lumbar and lumbosacral spine. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2002;(398):40–49. 11964630.

6. Ghadouane M, Elmansari O, Bousalmame N, Lezrek K, Aouam H, Moulay I. Role of surgery in the treatment of Pott's disease in adults. Apropos of 29 cases. Rev Chir Orthop Reparatrice Appar Mot 1996;82:620–628. 9091980.

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