[Complications of spine surgery and litigations]

The authors describe in this article the possible complications of spine surgery. By exposing them, they wish to draw the attention of the practitioners on the multiple risks related to these operations, as well as the means to prevent them and to make them stop their effects. The "zero" risk does not exist, even for the most common operations. However there is a tendency by the judiciary system to look favourably at the demands for compensation of damage, considering that at the origin of every post operative complication exists, more or less hidden, a fault eligible for financial repair. Up to the present day, a fault must be proven in the management of a medical case. A reminder of the foundations of the medical responsibility applied to the surgery of the spine is reported, knowing well that surgical damages are not always the result of an error or a misconduct, and therefore, the surgeon is not responsible for the damage in the absence of a proven fault.