Clinical efficacy of different open approaches in the surgical treatment of thoracolumbar tuberculosis: a single-center retrospective comparative study

Objective To assess the clinical efficacy of three different surgical approaches in the treatment of thoracolumbar tuberculosis. Methods A total of 138 patients with thoracolumbar tuberculosis treated by open surgery were retrospectively analyzed. The surgical methods were divided into anterior, posterior and anterior-posterior combined. The hospital stays, amount of bleeding, operative time, preoperative, postoperative and last follow-up ESR, CRP, Frankel score, ODI, VAS, correction and loss rate of kyphosis, fusion rate and complications were recorded and analyzed. Results The average follow-up was 66 months. The average hospital stay, operative time and amount of bleeding of the anterior-posterior combined group were higher than other groups (P Conclusion The anterior approach has more advantages and fewer complications, which is supposed to give preference to and could not be replaced by the posterior and anterior-posterior combined approach.