THURSDAY, Jan. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is effective in treating bacterial spinal osteomyelitis resistant to antibiotics or that developed after spinal surgery in patients at risk for poor healing, researchers report in the January issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.
Raheel Ahmed, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Iowa in Iowa City reviewed the medical records of six patients (aged 31 to 81) diagnosed with spinal osteomyelitis who had received hyperbaric oxygen therapy (30 sessions over a six-week period). Four patients had developed secondary spinal osteomyelitis after spinal surgery and had significant comorbidities and risk factors for poor healing. Two had experienced a recurrence of primary spinal osteomyelitis despite antibiotic treatment.
During a mean follow-up of 1.9 years, the researchers found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy led to adequate infection cure in five of six patients. One patient relapsed after oxygen therapy and received long-term antibiotic treatment. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common organism isolated from blood and wound site cultures, the authors note.
"Our results demonstrate the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in patients with spinal osteomyelitis complicated by primary therapy failure or by medical comorbidities that may impede the eradication of microbial infection and delay wound healing," Ahmed and colleagues conclude.
Abstract
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