Differential Diagnosis of Spinal Disease
Spinal disease affects many neurosurgical patients. The differential diagnosis for spinal disease is broad both in terms of anatomic localization and pathologic mechanism. The goal of this chapter is to explore spine pathology by placing disorders into characteristic frameworks that a clinician can use to evaluate a patient. The chapter focuses on symptom-driven diagnosis and care and separates disorders by clinical presentation, discussing pathologies that can contribute to these presentations. To arrive at a differential diagnosis, one must acquire patient history, examination, laboratory, and imaging data; create a problem or clinical presentation; and then adapt a framework for the types of disorders that could cause that presentation. We split up the framework into degenerative, deformity, traumatic, oncologic, inflammatory, and toxic/metabolic etiologies.
