Pinto D, Dhawale A, Shah I, et al. - Researchers conducted a retrospective observational study of children treated for spinal TB in order to analyze their surgical outcomes. In addition, they investigated if drug resistant (DR) disease is linked with poorer surgical outcomes in this cohort. Of 41 children (mean age 8.5±4.2 years, 20 boys, 21 girls) treated for spinal TB, 15 were managed conservatively, only one of which had DR-TB. Among the rest of the 26 patients managed surgically, 13 were managed with first-line ATT and 13 required second-line ATT. This latter group comprised eight patients with microbiologically proven drug resistance, whereas there were five who were switched to second-line therapy presumptively because of failure to show an adequate response to first-line regimen. In this cohort of children treated surgically for spinal tuberculosis, drug resistant disease was noted to be linked with a higher complication rate, and thus poor surgical outcomes.