Operative Treatment of Tuberculosis of the Spine in Old People

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Abstract
Seventy-two patients over sixty years of age who were treated by operative excision of the diseased bone, bone grafts, and local and systemic antituberculous drugs were reviewed. Postoperative immobilization was minimum; yet complications were few and the final results were good. Twenty-one of these patients, the younger ones in the group who were sixty to sixty-five years old, returned to light or medium-heavy home and agriculture work. The older patients who were sixty-six to seventy-four years old generally returned to their homes and to a daily life no different from that before the onset of Pott's disease. Sixty-one patients over sixty years of age who were treated by conservative therapy were also reviewed. During their hospitalization, they were unhappy and often uncooperative. The recurrence rate was high (31 per cent). In this group only thirteen patients were able to return to their regular life and to their daily home duties and none was able to do light agriculture work. The average hospital stay was sixteen months for the patients treated conservatively and five months for the patients treated by surgery.

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