Potts’ Disease or tuberculous infection of the spine is a rarely seen complication of TB in this day and age. As the infection reactivates in the adult, the mycobacteria may seed throughout the body causing infection outside the lungs in bone, the kidneys, or the nervous system. Eventually, untreated infection in these sites or the primary pulmonary process may cause death.
As recently as the 1970’s when I got into medicine, we still saw extra-pulmonary TB occasionally. It disappeared in civilized countries until the AIDS epidemic brought back some of the unusual manifestations.
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