上位頸椎Discitisの1例

Upper Cervical Discitis:Case report

I．はじめに

　脊椎感染症は腰椎，胸椎などの下部脊椎に多く見られ，上部頸椎に発症することは稀である．以前われわれは四肢麻痺にて発症した上部頸椎感染症の1例を報告したが，MRIが早期診断に有用であった硬膜外膿瘍を伴うdiscitisの1例を新たに経験した．文献的考察を加え報告を行う．

A 48-year-old man complained of severe neck pain. T1-weighted magnetic reasonance imaging (MRI) after intravenous injection of Gadolinium disclosed homo-geneously enhanced masses in the retropharyngeal soft tissue, in the inter-vertebral disc space between C3 and C4, and in the spinal epidural space behind the verte-bral body. The symptoms of the patient improved smoothly after intravenous injection of antibiotics with-out surgical procedure. In this case, MRI was very im-portant and useful in the prompt diagnosis of the dis-ease.