ABSTRACT

Background Data:

Lumbar decompression and fusion are widely accepted surgical techniques to treat most of the degenerative lumbar spine diseases. With the increasing geriatric population, requiring lumbar surgery is expected to increase concomitantly.

Purpose:

To show factors affecting per operative complications and correlation between American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status Classification score (ASA) and per operative complications

Material Methods:

Retrospectively, factors affecting per operative complications in patients undergoing lumbar decompression and fusion for complex lumbar spinal stenosis including age, sex, ASA, co-morbidities, decompression and fusion levels, previous operations, operation time, amount of blood loss, major or minor complications were recorded.

Results:

Major complications occurred in 7 (19%) patients and minor complications occurred in 12 (35%) of 37 patients. There was no statistically significant difference between age, sex, operation time or blood loss and the prevalence of complications (p=0.230/0.2, p=0.746/0.433, p=0.138/0.135, p=0.235/0.2 respectively). There was statistically significant differences between ASA and total complications (major or minor) and minor complications (p=0.033, p=0.037 respectively). On the other hand the prevalence of major complications was not influenced by ASA (p=0.213). There was significant difference and positive correlation between fusion levels and minor complications (p=0.034, r=0.349).

Conclusion:

In the event of increased number of fusion levels and higher ASA score more complications should be expected. However ASA is not a predictive factor for major complications beside minor complications.