Percutaneous vertebral body cement augmentation for back pain related to occult osteomyelitis/diskitis

Although complications related to vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty are few, we treated 2 patients with vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty for pain, presumed to be due to vertebral compression fractures, which were subsequently found to be due to occult osteomyelitis/diskitis. The onset of their infections appeared to have preceded their vertebral body augmentation procedures and was possibly due to prior interventional procedures for histories of back pain.An 86-year-old woman had had 3 prior kyphoplasty procedures for fractures at T10, T11, and L1. She reported continued severe pain, and subsequent magnetic resonance imaging was misinterpreted for another fracture at T12, resulting in her fourth kyphoplasty. She became septic and had some improvement with antibiotics, but she declined specialty care and died. A 74-year-old man with chronic back pain had recently undergone lumbar facet joint injections. Computed tomography and subsequent bone scan found uptake at both L2 and L3. Despite abnormal erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level and normal radiographic vertebral height, he underwent a vertebroplasty. His pain increased, and subsequent workup found L2-3 diskitis. He recovered with antibiotics and specialty care. Similar to prior reports of spondylodiskitis, both patients had multiple medical comorbidities.This article emphasizes the need for clinical reevaluation and scrutiny in the interpretation of imaging studies, including for infection in patients with continued pain after spinal procedures. The differential diagnosis of infectious etiology is an important consideration prior to vertebral cement augmentation for presumed fragility fracture.