Osteodiscitis Post- COVID-19 Infection: A Case Series

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease. It affects almost all organs of the human body. Lumbar osteodiscitis is an infection of the vertebral body and disc. The association of COVID-19 with osteodiscitis has not been reported in the literature so far. The purpose of this study was to describe a series of four cases manifested as post-COVID-19 osteodiscitis.Case presentation: We performed a retrospective assessment of the clinical, radiological, and microbiological features of adult post-COVID-19 patients who underwent surgery for unstable lumbar osteodiscitis at our hospital. The mean age of patients was 45.8±7.8 years. All the patients were treated according to their clinical conditions through a combined surgical approach as laminectomy, facetectomy, pedicular screw insertion, and fusion. The clear causes of infection were not recognized by routine methods, and COVID-19 was the only common factor in patients in the last 6 to 8 weeks.Conclusions: This case series suggest that osteodiscitis could be one of the possible side effects after COVID-19 infection.