ArticleEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2020
Spinal surgery complications: an unsolved problem-Is the World Health Organization Safety Surgical Checklist an useful tool to reduce them?
Article in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Negative pressure wound therapy in the management of postoperative spinal wound infections: a systematic review.European journal of orthopaedic surgery & traumatology : orthopedie traumatologie · 2024Pooled it
- Do nutritional assessment tools (PNI, CONUT, GNRI) predict adverse events after spinal surgeries? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2024Pooled it
- Outcomes and Complications Associated With 191 Carbon Fiber Pedicle Screws in Spinal Oncology Patients.International journal of spine surgery · 2026Article
- Indocyanine Green as a Marker for Tissue Ischemia in Spinal Tumor Resections and Extended Revisions: A Technical Note.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- First Clinical Evidence About the Use of a New Silver-Coated Titanium Alloy Instrumentation to Counteract Surgical Site Infection at the Spine Level.Journal of functional biomaterials · 2025Article
- Prolonged operative time significantly impacts on the incidence of complications in spinal surgery.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2024Article
- Challenges in Contemporary Spine Surgery: A Comprehensive Review of Surgical, Technological, and Patient-Specific Issues.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Perioperative Complications Following Spine Surgery in Adult Patients with Achondroplasia.Global spine journal · 2024Article
- Validity of the I‑FEED classification in assessing postoperative gastrointestinal impairment in patients undergoing elective lumbar spinal surgery with general anesthesia: a prospective observational study.Perioperative medicine (London, England) · 2024Article
- Factors associated with increased length of stay and risk of complications in 336 patients submitted to spine surgery. The role of a validated capture system (SAVES v2) as a first-line tool to properly face the problem.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2024Article
- Spinal Injections: A Narrative Review from a Surgeon's Perspective.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Multi-domain biopsychosocial postoperative recovery trajectories associate with patient outcomes following lumbar fusion.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2023Article
- Implementing an infection control checklist May not be effective in reducing the incidence of surgical site infections in spinal surgery.Journal of infection prevention · 2022Article
- Complications and Risk Factors in En Bloc Resection of Spinal Tumors: A Retrospective Analysis on 298 Patients Treated in a Single Institution.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2022Article
- Medicosurgical management of deep wound infections after thoracolumbar instrumentation: risk factors of poor outcomes.Acta neurochirurgica · 2022Article
- The Impact of Frailty on Spine Surgery: Systematic Review on 10 years Clinical Studies.Aging and disease · 2021Review
- Using failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to generate an initial plan check checklist for improved safety in radiation treatment.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
purposeTo investigate whether the World Health Organization Safety Surgical Checklist (SSC) is an effective tool to reduce complications in spinal surgery.
methodsWe retrospectively evaluated the clinical and radiological charts prospectively collected from patients who underwent a spinal surgery procedure from January 2010 to December 2012. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of complications between two periods, from January to December 2010 (without checklist) and from January 2011 and December 2012 (with checklist), in order to assess the checklist's effectiveness.
resultsThe sample size was 917 patients with an average of 30-month follow-up. The mean age was 52.88 years. The majority of procedures were performed for oncological diseases (54.4%) and degenerative diseases (39.8%). In total, 159 complications were detected (17.3%). The overall incidence of complications for trauma, infectious pathology, oncology, and degenerative disease was 22.2%, 19.2%, 18.4%, and 15.3%, respectively. No correlation was observed between the type of pathology and the complication incidence. We observed a reduction in the overall incidence of complications following the introduction of the SSC: In 2010 without checklist, the incidence of complications was 24.2%, while in 2011 and 2012, following the checklist introduction, the incidence of complications was 16.7% and 11.7%, respectively (mean 14.2%).
conclusionsThe SSC seems to be an effective tool to reduce complications in spinal surgery. We propose to extend the use of checklist system also to the preoperative and postoperative phases in order to further reduce the incidence of complications. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.
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