Evaluation of Empirical Antibiotic Treatment in Culture Negative Pyogenic Vertebral Osteomyelitis

AIM: To investigate the efficacy of empirical antibiotic treatment in culture-negative pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis (PVO) cases. MATERIAL and METHODS: The records of patients with culture-negative PVO who were treated at infectious diseases and neurosurgery outpatient clinics in the past four years were examined retrospectively. The control group comprised healthy subjects with similar age, gender, and body mass index but without pathology. The comparison of the groups was performed by analysis of variance. Statistical significance was accepted as p0.05). However, a statistical significance was assessed in the results of the comparison for C-reactive protein (p