Mo YF, Mu ZS, Zhou K, Pan D, Zhan HT, Tang YH. Surgery combined with antibiotics for thoracic vertebral Escherichia coli infection after acupuncture: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(35): 13099-13107 [PMID: 36569001 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i35.13099]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yang-Hua Tang, Doctor, Academic Research, Additional Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Xiaoshan District, Chengxiang Street, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China. tangyanghua168@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Infectious Diseases
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Ya-Feng Mo, Zhuo-Song Mu, Kun Zhou, Dong Pan, Department of Orthopaedics, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 311200, Zhejiang Province, China
Huan-Teng Zhan, Department of Orthopaedics, Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Xinyu City, Xinyu 338000, Jiangxi Province, China
Yang-Hua Tang, Department of Orthopaedics, Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Mo YF and Mu ZS collected the patient’s data; Mu ZS, Pan D, and Zhou K analyzed the data and performed the literature search; Mo YF, Tang YH, and Zhan HT drafted and revised the manuscript; Mu ZS contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first author; Tang YH provided the subject support; All authors contributed to data analysis, drafting and revision of the manuscript, and read and approved the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for the publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yang-Hua Tang, Doctor, Academic Research, Additional Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Xiaoshan District, Chengxiang Street, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China. tangyanghua168@163.com
Received: September 30, 2022 Peer-review started: September 30, 2022 First decision: October 24, 2022 Revised: November 2, 2022 Accepted: November 22, 2022 Article in press: November 22, 2022 Published online: December 16, 2022 Processing time: 74 Days and 16.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Acupuncture is relatively popular worldwide, but an unregulated operation can easily lead to infections. The purpose of this report was to analyze a clinical case of surgery combined with the use of antibiotics for the treatment of thoracic vertebral infection by Escherichia coli (E. coli) after acupuncture.
CASE SUMMARY
A 63-year-old male was diagnosed with E. coli infection in the thoracic vertebra after acupuncture. His fever and pain did not improve after treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics for 10 d. Thus, debridement of the infected area and biopsy were decided. The final pathology confirmed the diagnosis of vertebral infection by E. coli. The patient underwent anterior and posterior thoracic vertebral debridement and internal fixation surgery combined with the use of sensitive antibiotics. He had no fever or backache 3 mo postoperatively.
CONCLUSION
In this report, we first considered antibiotic treatment for the patient with septic spinal infection, but the effect was not obvious. Interventional surgery was combined with the use of sensitive antibiotics to relieve backache, and good clinical results were achieved. Furthermore, acupuncture practitioners should pay attention to hygienic measures.
Core Tip: Lack of aseptic awareness of acupuncture can easily cause patients to develop infections at the treatment area. Some even lead to serious medical errors. The patient in this case developed vertebral infection after acupuncture treatment on the back. After a cycle of antibiotic treatment without significant improvement, early surgical intervention in combination with the postoperative use of sensitive antibiotics may be considered.
