Avoiding and Managing Complications in Routine Lumbar Spine Surgery

Elective lumbar surgery for common degenerative lumbar spine pathology has been consistently demonstrated to have excellent outcomes by multiple validated measures and improves patient quality of life. The rate of complication is low but not unavoidable; there is an increasing recognition of risk factors that can be mitigated to decrease complication rates. When complications occur, prompt recognition and management may minimize deleterious effects on patient outcome. There are considerations for identifying risk factors and, when possible, minimizing them and general strategies for identifying and managing common complications in lumbar spine surgery.