CT of pyogenic spine infection.

A retrospective review of 19 patients with a diagnosis of pyogenic spine infection evaluated with spine CT was performed. In addition to displaying bone involvement, CT routinely depicted paraspinous and epidural involvement often not apparent on conventional radiographs or nuclear medicine studies. CT proved particularly useful in workup of patients with clinical evidence of infection associated with back pain and neurologic symptoms, evaluation of patients with fever and recurrent back pain following recent spine surgery, guiding diagnostic aspiration of suspected spinal regions for culture and sensitivity, pre-operative planning of debridement surgery.