Treatment of thoracic spinal tuberculosis combined with paraplegia

       The patient was a 65-year-old male with the main cause of back pain for six months, aggravated with weakness of both lower limbs. He was admitted to the hospital for more than 1 month with inability to walk. Admission CT: destruction of thoracic 11-12 vertebrae, spinal canal involvement, hyperplasia and coalescence of the thoracic articular processes at the corresponding level, and spinal canal stenosis. MRI showed: vertebral body destruction, spinal canal involvement and stenosis: the patient had thoracic spinal tuberculosis, and although the invasion of tuberculosis lesions into the spinal canal did not appear to be serious, the patient had both degenerative spinal stenosis in the past, so that Frankel grade C paraplegia was caused and the patient could not stand and walk.       The patient opted for posterior laminectomy of the vertebral plate, articular eminence, and cribriform joints, and at the same time, resection of the diseased vertebral body from the posterior side to achieve 360-degree circumferential decompression of the spinal cord, followed by anterior intervertebral support reconstruction and posterior internal fixation. This is similar to the Tomita procedure for spinal tumors or the VCR procedure for posterior convex osteotomy. Intraoperative and postoperative: In recent years, some doctors have used this procedure in the surgical treatment of spinal tuberculosis, and there has been much criticism of this procedure. My own opinion is that this procedure is too traumatic, risky, and technically difficult to be a routine option for the surgical treatment of spinal tuberculosis. However, in the case of our patient, he had paraplegia and needed decompression and reconstruction due to, at the same time, his degenerative spinal stenosis. It would be difficult to achieve complete and effective decompression with either anterior or posterior conventional surgery alone, and if anterior and posterior surgery were chosen, it would be even more traumatic and, moreover, difficult to achieve such complete decompression. Due to the complete decompression, our patient’s muscle strength started to recover on the first postoperative day, and he was able to walk on the ground one month after surgery.