Study of causes of hospitalization with diagnosis of spondylitis in the infectious ward of Imam Reza Hospital in Tabriz 2017-2019

Abstract

Infection of the vertebrae of the spine is called osteomyelitis of the spine or spondylitis. The disease usually manifests itself with local pain in the spine along with fever and increased ESR. Due to the endemicity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Brucella in the region of Iran and the different statistics of old studies in Iran compared to global factors, as well as the occurrence of opportunistic and hospital-acquired infections and the existence of antibiotic resistance, as well as the limited statistical information in this region. And at this point in time, there is a need to study the causes of spondylitis hospitalized in recent years in East Azerbaijan province, and especially in Imam Reza Hospital, Tabriz medical training center as the largest medical center in the northwest of the country.

Methods In this cross-sectional study, after the approval of the study plan by the respected ethics committee, all patients who met the conditions to enter the study were included in the study. The information required for the study was extracted from the files of hospitalized patients in the form of a census and after entering the information into the SPSS software, statistical analysis of the data was done. Sampling was by census method.

Results This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the symptoms, risk factors, treatment and prognosis of infectious spondylitis referred to Imam Reza (AS) hospital in Tabriz city. Between April 2016 and March 2018, 30 patients were identified with this diagnosis, and the majority of them (25 patients equal to 83.3%) were men. Of these studied patients, the final diagnosis was Bacterial Spondylodiscitis in 26 cases (86.7%) and Spondylitis in the remaining 4 cases (13.3%). In terms of age, the youngest patient studied was 40 years old and the oldest patient was 79 years old, and the average age was 56.43 ± 10.42. In the case of ESR, the mean of the studied patients was 67.30 ± 38.97, and in the case of CRP, the mean of the patients was 26.37 ± 28.77. Vancomycin with 20 patients (66.6%) was the most frequently used among the antibiotics used. In the next category was Cefepime with 10 patients (33.3%). Ciprofloxacin was the next most used antibiotic with 4 patients (13.3%). Only 2 patients, equivalent to 6.7% of the cases, required surgical treatment.