[Computed tomography in the diagnosis of tuberculous spondylitis complicated by neurological disorders].

Computed tomographic data were studied in 50 patients with evolutional forms of tuberculous spondylitis and 3 patients with its sequels. 95% of the patients were operated on. Cross sections displayed 3 variants of vertebral body destruction in tuberculous spondylitis. The vertebral canal was evaluated in 28 patients with neurological disorders and in 22 patients without them. Epidural abscess was revealed in all the patients with neurological disorders and in 12 patients without them. There was a relationship of the severity of neurological disorders as classified by Frankel et al. to the degree of stenosis of the vertebral canal, to the presence of its reserve space, and to the extent of vertebral and spinal lesion. The informative value of computed tomography in detecting spinal cord compression was 98.1 +/- 1.8%.