Detection of Spinal Tuberculosis by F-18 FDG PET/CT as a Cause of Unusual Referred Pain in the Right Upper Quadrant of Abdomen

Abstract

Tuberculous involvement of the spine (tuberculosis [TB] spine) can cause severe morbidity unless detected and treated early. Apart from the constitutional symptoms, it can present with back pain, kyphosis, gait abnormality, and paraplegia secondary to the bone or spinal cord involvement. There had been instances of TB spine presenting directly as abdominal pain due to psoas abscesses. Herein, we report a very rare clinical manifestation of TB spine as referred pain in the right upper abdominal quadrant due to right epidural phlegmon associated with T7 vertebra, detected by positron emission tomography. Publication Date: 30 April 2022 (online) © 2022. World Association of Radiopharmaceutical and Molecular Therapy (WARMTH). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd. A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India