Percutaneous diskectomy for disk space infections.

To diagnose and treat intervertebral disk space infection, we used percutaneous diskectomy in four patients to harvest a large amount of disk material and to decompress and lavage the infected disk space with a broad spectrum antibiotic solution. This treatment regimen rapidly diminished pain and shortened the acute clinical course of the process. The long-term course in this small number of patients, however, appears not to have been altered.