The
authors present a case of a 25-year old female patient who presented to their
facility with a chief complaint of low back pain and discomfort for the
previous two months. The symptoms gradually worsened. The patient denied any
fever, night sweats, and other aches. Symptoms worsened when standing up. They
were also aggravated by changing the body position. In particular, bending
forward was restricted. There was no radiating pain in the lower extremities.
An MRI of the lumbar spine revealed a lesion raising suspicions of tuberculosis
of the spine, which was later confirmed with biopsy and cultures. The patient
was placed on oral multi antituberculosis antibiotic treatment but responded
poorly to this treatment without much clinical improvement. Therefore,
endoscopic access was chosen to debride and irrigate the paraspinal tuberculous
abscess, which successfully treated the infection. The authors report the case
details to illustrate that a combination of antibiotic treatment and endoscopic
debridement may resolve the lumbar spine's complicated infection adequately.
Minimally invasive endoscopic irrigation and lavage of paraspinal tuberculous
abscesses can be considered an alternative to open surgery.
Keywords: Endoscopy, Irrigation & debridement, Lumbar spine, Tuberculosis.
