Introduction: Spondylitis is a rare bone and joint infection. It is a disease with long clinical history. Often, it is difficult to recognise symptoms at a proper time, and, due to the complex clinical outcome of spondylitis, a clinician may think about other problems in the body.
Case outline: A case report of a 59-year-old male patient with thoracic spine spondylitis is presented, formerly treated as pulmonary thromboembolism with pericarditis. Only after neurological disorder such as paraplegia and orthopaedic consultative examination, real diagnosis was established. After that, the patient was hospitalized and operated on.
Conclusion: A therapeutic approach to spondylitis is based on surgery, antibiotic drugs and symptomatic therapy. Due to the frequent occurrence of neurologic disorders, therapy could be prolonged and uncertain.