Discitis pyogenic

Description: 71 year old Indian man with a long history of back pain, recently worse. Had a prostatectomy 6 weeks ago. The image is a lateral tomogram that moves film and source as if they were ends of a lever. The unblurred fulcrum plane is revealed in more detail and enhances the detail of the vertical trabecula in this view. There is irregular narrowing of the disc space between the 3rd and 4th lumbar vertebrae with some patchy destruction of the adjacent margins of the vertebral bodies, postero-inferiorly in L3 and antero-superiorly in L4. The process has a poorly defined endosteal margin with a fairly wide zone of transition between normal and abnormal bone. There is a bounded soft-tissue shadow anterior to the affected intervertebral disc and adjacent vertebrae.