Rate of complications due to neuromuscular scoliosis spine surgery in a 30-years consecutive series.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the rate of intraoperative and postoperative complications in a large series of patients affected by neuromuscular scoliosis.

METHODS: It was a monocentric retrospective study. In this study have been considered complications those events that significantly affected the course of treatment, such as getting the hospital stay longer, or requiring a subsequent surgical procedure, or corrupting the final result of the treatment.

RESULTS: Of the 358 patients affected by neuromuscular scoliosis treated from January 1985 to December 2010, 185 that met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. There were recorded 66 complications in 55/185 patients. Of that 66 complications, 54 complications occurred in 46/120 patients with Luque's instrumentation, while only 12 complications occurred in 9/65 patients with hybrid instrumentation and this difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05); 11/126 patients with pelvic fixation and 5/59 without pelvic fixation, as well as 45/156 patients treated by posterior approach alone and 10/29 patient that underwent combined anterior-posterior approach suffered complications but both this did not result in a statistical significant difference (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The surgical treatment in neuromuscular scoliosis is burdened by a large number of complications. An accurate knowledge of possible complications is mandatory to prepare strategies due to prevent adverse events. A difference in definitions could completely change results in good or bad as well as in our same series the adverse events amounted at almost 30% of cases, but complications that due to complete failure would amount at 9.19% of patients.