title: Image guided interventions in spinal infections.
abstract: Spinal infections are challenging to diagnose and represent a life-threatening medical condition. Diagnosis is often delayed because of nonspecific accompanying symptoms. The role of interventional neuroradiology in spinal infection is double: diagnostic and therapeutic, consisting substantially of 2 main procedures, represented by spine biopsies and positioning of percutaneous drainage, which represent a minimally invasive, faster and more cost-effective alternative to open surgery procedures. This article will focus on the available state-of-the-art techniques to perform discovertebral image-guided biopsies in case of suspected infections and on image-guided placement of percutaneous drainage to treat infectious collections of the spine and paravertebral structures.
authors.affiliation: Neuroradiology Unit, S. Salvatore Hospital, University of L'Aquila, Via L. Natali, L'Aquila 67100, Italy. Electronic address: massimo.gallucci@cc.univaq.it.
authors.forename: Prof Massimo
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Gallucci
authors.affiliation: Neuroradiology Unit, S. Salvatore Hospital, Via L. Natali, L'Aquila 67100, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: D'Orazio
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004322:Drainage; D005471:Fluoroscopy; D006801:Humans; D061705:Image-Guided Biopsy; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D015642:Radiology, Interventional; D013122:Spinal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology*; D013131:Spine / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
keywords: Computed tomography-guided biopsies; Image guided interventions; Percutaneous drainage of the spine; Spinal infections