Spinal tuberculosis is the most common form of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. It is of great importance to neurologists because of the potentially devastating complication of paraplegia, which may set in during active disease or the healed phase. Due to the deep-seated nature of the disease, definitive diagnosis is often challenging. There is no clear consensus on the appropriate duration of therapy for spinal tuberculosis, with various guidelines recommending treatment from as short as 6 months to up to 18 months. In this article, we present a critical appraisal of the evidence on the same. In our opinion, the duration of antitubercular therapy needs to be individualized and the decision to terminate therapy should be multifactorial (clinical, radiological, pathological/microbiological where possible) rather than being enmeshed within any particular guideline.


中文翻译：

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脊柱结核治疗：持久的争夺


脊柱结核是肺外结核的最常见形式。对于神经科医生来说，这是非常重要的，因为截瘫的潜在破坏性并发症可能在活动性疾病或康复阶段出现。由于疾病的根深蒂固的性质，明确的诊断通常具有挑战性。对于脊椎结核的适当治疗时间尚无明确共识，各种指南建议治疗时间从短至6个月至最长18个​​月。在本文中，我们对证据进行了严格的评估。我们认为，抗结核治疗的持续时间需要个性化，终止治疗的决定应是多因素的（临床，放射学，