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Updated: Aug 22, 2026
Intra-Operative Behavioral Tasks in Awake Humans Undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery
Published on: January 6, 2011
Surgical and hardware complications of subthalamic stimulation: a series of 160 procedures
Kelly E Lyons1, Steven B Wilkinson, John Overman
1Department of Neurology, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3599 Rainbow Blvd., Mailstop 2012, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. lyons.kelly@att.net
Objective:
To assess the surgical and hardware complications in a series of 81 consecutive patients undergoing subthalamic (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease (PD).
Methods:
The authors prospectively documented surgical and hardware complications occurring at the time of surgery and at subsequent neurologic and surgical evaluations for an average of 17 months, ranging from 1 to 54 months.
Results:
No patient had a serious surgical complication resulting in death or permanent neurologic deficit. One patient had an intracranial hemorrhage but with no permanent deficit. In follow-up, 2.5% had infections requiring system removal, 3.7% had infections requiring implantable pulse generator (IPG) removal, 12.5% had misplaced leads, and 26.2% had hardware complications including lead migration, lead fracture, extension erosion, extension fracture, and IPG malfunction.
Conclusion:
Serious complications leading to permanent neurologic deficit are rare after STN DBS for advanced PD. However, long-term follow-up demonstrated that hardware complications are relatively common, having occurred in approximately 26% of these patients.
