A new technique: nitroglycerin to induce hypotension for Harrington rod procedure

The use of induced hypotension for spinal instrumentation and fusion will remain controversial, but we do feel our results have been safe and effective. We by no means feel enough cases have been done with nitroglycerin. The wide range of differences in the blood loss in our two techniques could very well narrow as more and more cases are done. The trend we see of decreased blood loss with nitroglycerin may very continue. However, we do feel our results warrant further use of this technique.