Fig. 1

Anaerobic spondylodiscitis mimicking a fragile vertebral body compression fracture in a 72-year-old female (No. 3) with chronic lower back pain in the absence of fever. A Loss of vertebral body height without the widening of the interpedicular distance and interspinal process distance was observed at the L2 vertebra in the anteroposterior view of the lumbar spine radiograph. B Compression fracture of the L2 vertebra with preserved disk height was observed as an anterior wedging deformity and vertebral body height loss in the lateral and anteroposterior view of the lumbar spinal radiograph. C Heterogeneous enhancement of the L2 vertebral body and prevertebral space was observed on a sagittal gadolinium-enhanced fat-suppressed T1-weighted magnetic resonance image. D Enhancement of the paraspinal soft tissue muscle surrounding the L2 vertebral body. A spinal epidural abscess was observed as an epidural mass with central hypointensity and surrounding linear enhancement on an axial view of contrast-enhanced T1-weighted imaging