[Harrison]

When Abbe posted recently about the cysts noted by her surgeon, it made me think about the many times here in this community that this cyst issue has been reported (sorry).

I’ve attended conferences that involve the discussions of bacterial biofilms. There’s been a lot of research over the years regarding biofilms, specifically how they sequester and protect many different species of pathogens, ranging from mycobacteria to yeast to viruses to protozoa. These complex fortresses that protect these naughty guys are called polymicrobial biofilms. This phenomenon has been known for decades, but IMHO has been woefully neglected by the medical establishment.

Check these out:

Surg Infect (Larchmt). 2009 Oct 7.
Chronic Surgical Site Infection Due to Suture-Associated Polymicrobial Biofilm.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19811056

Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2009 Sep;53(9):3914-22. Epub 2009 Jun 29.
Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus form polymicrobial biofilms: effects on antimicrobial resistance.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19564370

So, how does all this interrelate? Bacterial biofilms are said to be composed of calcium (et al) stuff, which make them tough – and resistant to both the immune system and antibiotics.

In the future, perhaps scientists will find that this calcium “stealing” or "leaching" is related to osteoporosis and other conditions. This is one of many topics I’ve been researching and will share much more in the spring. In the meantime, see below.

PS: I do wonder how "unusual" this cyst is in terms of its composition. I think what is very unusual is the level of diagnostics performed on any excised tissue from a patient that is diseased. Presumably, all patients with DDD have a localized disease of some sort with an undiagnosed etiology.
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Unusual facet cyst containing struvite and hydroxyapatite
Journal: Skeletal Radiology M. Grantham and B. Richmond
Department of Musculoskeletal Radiology, A21, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH44195, USA, US

This case report describes a patient with severe back pain and radiculopathy. She was found to have a facet cyst within the lumbar spine that appeared to contain calcium on MRI and CT. Upon aspiration the cyst was found to contain calcium ammonium phosphate (struvite) and calcium phosphate (hydroxyapatite). Ammonia production in the presence of urease-producing bacteria is responsible for the production of struvite in the human body. We postulate that there was a prior infection of the facet with urease-producing bacteria, thus accounting for the production of the struvite within the facet cyst.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/bejywlqmg9fmvcpu/fulltext.pdf?page=1