Renal tuberculosis and spinal tuberculosis


Tuberculosis is a disease that affects primarily the lungs and from there it can spread through the circulatory system to other places in the body such as the liver or the spine cord.

Renal tuberculosis affects the kidneys and urinary tract. This is a secondary infection, the first being in the lungs. By the time this is diagnosed, the lung infection can present itself in a calcified form, even inactive.

This disease affects the arterioles and glands from the kidneys. In more advances cases, the kidneys start to ulcerate, they start having ’’scares”.

In the early stages, renal tuberculosis is asymptomatic. But later on, patient may see signs like loss of appetite which will lead to weight loss. More important indications are the kidney inflammation and pain. Other symptoms include chills, fever and frequent urination, sometimes there can be blood in the urine (this is called hematuria).

Renal tuberculosis can be classified using two criteria. First of all, this type of tuberculosis can be intra-renal or extra-renal. Secondly, considering the number of kidneys affected, there is: unilateral renal tuberculosis (it affects only one kidney) and bilateral (both kidneys have developed the disease- the infection has spread; this is true in very serious cases).

To diagnose this kind of tuberculosis physicians use a method with the smallest chance of extending the infection, this is called renal catheterization. If the disease is unilateral, this method of detecting the affliction presents minimal chances of infecting the healthy kidney. Often, a dye is used to locate with precision the damaged urethra.

Treating renal tuberculosis has still been very poorly approached. In unilateral cases, doctors might suggest the chirurgical method, to remove the diseased kidney. If the second shows signs of infection, this procedure is not recommended. Tuberculosis is a rapidly spreading disease.

There are also some non-chirurgical methods of combating this disease. For example, a new technique implements lot of rest, a healthy well balanced diet, exercises and massages, drinking lots of fluids- in this way the blood has the chance of potentiating its healing agents, so that the body can fight the infection naturally.

Another type of tuberculosis is spinal tuberculosis; also called Pott’s disease- this disease affects the spinal cord. The major symptoms are back aches for a long period of time and also, the common signs of tuberculosis: inexplicable weight loss, loss of appetite, fever chills etc.

Even today, tuberculosis of the spine is still a wide spread condition. The infection affects the bone, deteriorating its structure. The disease can cause bone fractures and permanent spinal deformation. Other second-hand effects include neurological damage.

Diagnosing this disease is, at the same time, easy and hard. Physicians have to take a detailed medical history of the patient – this includes various questions about past pains and how the pain distributed in the body, bone problems etc. There is also a clinical examination that gives more details about a person’s medical state (about mobility, neurological responses and other tests that assess the disease). Other tests that establish the nature of the disease are MRI scans, bone scans, X-rays of the spine, but also some basic blood analysis.

Once diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis, the patient can undergo treatment. This varies depending on the patient’s age, the percentage of bone damage, the functioning of the nerves etc. The basic treatment scheme is an antibiotic treatment for more than 6 months. In severe cases, where the spinal cord is extensively damaged, there is the surgical option of stabilizing the column and reestablishing the nerve connections.