There are quite a few controversies on surgical management of single-segment thoracic spinal tuberculosis (STB) with neurological deficits. The present study was to compare single-stage posterior-only transpedicular debridement, interbody fusion and posterior instrumentation (posterior-only surgery) with a combined posterior-anterior surgical approach for treatment of single-segment thoracic STB with neurological deficits and to determi-nethe clinical feasibility and effectiveness of

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... nly surgical treatment. Sixty patients with single-segment thoracic STB with neurological deficits were treated with one of two surgical procedures in our center from January 2003 to January 2013. Thirty patients were treated with posterior-only surgery (Group A) andthirty were treated with combined posterior-anterior surgery (Group B). The American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) score system to evaluate the neurological deficits, thevisual analogue scale (VAS) to assess the degree of pain, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) to judge the activity of tuberculosis (TB), surgery duration, intraoperative blood loss, length of hospitalization, bonyfusion rates, and kyphosis correction of the two groups were compared. The average follow-up period was 36.5 ± 9.2 months for Group A and 34.6 ± 10.2 months for Group B. Under the ASIA score system, all patients improved with treatment. STB was completely cured and grafted bones were fused within 5-11 months in allpatients. There were no persistent or recurrent infections orobvious differences in radiological results between thegroups. The kyphosis deformity was significantly corrected after surgical management. The average operative duration, blood loss, length of hospital stay, and postoperative complication rateof Group A were lower than those of Group B. In conclusions, posterior-only surgery is feasible and effective, resulting in better clinical outcomes than combined posterior-anterior surgeries, especially in surgical time, blood loss, hospital stay, and complications.