Clinical impact of (18)F-FDG PET/CT on the management and diagnosis of infectious spondylitis.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) on the management of patients with infectious spondylitis.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-nine patients with infectious spondylitis (9 with tuberculous spondylitis and 20 with pyogenic spondylitis) who had undergone an (18)F-FDG PET/CT examination were retrospectively evaluated; 42 lesions were detected. A useful impact on the clinical management of infection therapy (start or longer duration of antibiotic therapy, or surgical intervention, etc) was defined as a strong impact, whereas gaining new information not affecting the clinical management of infection therapy from (18)F-FDG PET/CT was defined as a weak impact.

Constrictive tuberculous pericarditis diagnosed using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography: a report of two cases.

We present two cases of tuberculous pericarditis that were diagnosed using 18F-fluorodeoxyglycose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). Here, we highlight the value of 18F-FDG-PET for demonstrating tuberculous pericardial involvement as well as disease dissemination and activity. The patients received antitubercular treatment, and their symptoms and findings resolved accordingly.

Cold tuberculous abscess identified by FDG PET.

We report FDG PET of two cases of cold abscess due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Case 1 had colon cancer; FDG PET showed high FDG uptake in the colon lesion and low uptake in the inguinal lesion. The latter was a tuberculous cold abscess confirmed by CT/MRI and biopsy.

Granular cell tumor presenting as an intradural extramedullary tumor.

Granular cell tumor (GCT) is an uncommon benign tumor, which is thought to originate from a Schwann cell. GCT may involve any part of the body, but in our knowledge, there has been only one previous report of GCT, which arose in the intradural extramedullary space of the spine. We report a case of GCT, which occurred in the intradural extramedullary space.

[A case of multiple bone and joint tuberculosis which had been misdiagnosed as the rheumatoid arthritis and treated with prednisolone for eleven months].

A 34-year-old man had a multiple arthralgia for about eleven months. The swelling of his right wrist and foot had appeared in the dorsal side, and he had been misdiagnosed as the rheumatoid arthritis. He was treated with prednisolone in the dosages of 2.