[Suboccipital tuberculosis: the clinical and radiation and potentialities of current surgical treatment].

The clinical and radiological manifestations of suboccipital tuberculosis have been analyzed in 7 patients aged 7 to 35 years. A case of this condition accompanied by extensive vertebral destruction, abscesses, and basilar impression is described in a 7.5-year-old child. A radical stabilizing operation was successfully performed using the currently available technologies.

[Current radiotherapy for extrapulmonary tuberculosis].

Radiation studies are prominent in the diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. X-ray study preserves its basic value. Its-based concepts of the pathology of osteoarticular, urogenital, lymphabdominal tuberculosis largely allow for analyzing the images obtained by new medical visualization techniques, such as X-ray tomography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonography, and radionuclide studies. Each method has its merits and demerits and is used by a certain algorithm at different sites of extrapulmonary tuberculosis.

[Clinical, x-ray, and laboratory features of tuberculosis and osteomyelitis of the spine].

In 20% of cases, tuberculous spondylitis running with a prevalence of the exudative-necrotic type of a local tissue reaction has an acute onset with febrile fever, severe pains, and progressive neurological disorders and clinically resembles acute hematogenous osteomyelitis of the spine. With a predominance of the productive type of a tissue reaction, tuberculous spondylitis resembles subacute hematogenous osteomyelitis of the spine. History data, laboratory parameters, and an X-ray follow-up are of great importance in its differential diagnosis.

[Clinical and radiographic manifestations of tuberculous spondylitis in adults]. / Kliniko-rentgenologicheskie proiavleniia tuberkuleznogo spondilita vzroslykh.

Data on 348 adult patients with tuberculous spondylitis treated in 1994-1999 are analyzed. The radiation manifestations of spondylitis first occurring in maturity, which amount to 82.3% in the clinical setting were studied in 112 patients. In 50% of cases, spondylitis was a manifestation of multiorgan tuberculosis. The proportion of those with onset in youth increased (27.9). Isolated lesions of the corpus vertebrae were more frequently detected. The processes involving 2 vertebrae were predominant (61.2%), but complicated by foci at new levels. There was a drastic increase in the proportion of disseminated and multi-levelled spondylitis involving 3-9 vertebrae (36.9%). The exudative component of the inflammation was much pronounced, abscesses were extensive in all forms of spondylitis. Spinal cord deficit was noted in 68% of cases of thoracic and cervical spondylitis. MRI should be used for early diagnosis and determination of the extent of a process.

[Radiologic diagnosis of osteoarticular tuberculosis and borderline skeletal diseases]. / Luchevaia diagnostika kostno-sustavnogo tuberkuleza i pogranichnykh zabolevanii skeleta.

A total of 3305 ill children and adults treated for skeletal diseases and lesions underwent primary and follow-up radiation studies. Patients with spinal diseases amounted to 72%, of them 58% were found to have neurological diseases, 28% had articular diseases. The examination of patients involved X-ray tomography, contrast myelotomography, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. Surgical and laboratory verifications of the diagnosis were made in 53% of adults and 78.5% of children. It is shown that there are difficulties in diagnosing and differentiating osteoarticular tuberculosis at present and X-ray tomography and contrast myelography are essential in diagnosing spinal diseases. Indications for computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, osteoscintigraphy and the sequence of their use in the diagnosis of diseases were defined. The paper emphasizes that an osteoarticulogist's assessment of complex data of radiation diagnosis is very important.