RISK MANAGEMENT
_______________________________________________________

There is a risk of complications for all surgical procedures. "Iatrogenic injury" is the term for injury occurring during surgery. The accepted incidence of neurological deficit is 11% to 15% for some procedures in and around certain structures of the nervous system. (1, 2) Surgeons that utilize intra- operative neurophysiological monitoring can reduce that percentage significantly.

Hospitals benefit from full documentation of neurophysiological function during the procedure. When using (IONM) Intraoperative Neuromonitoring, physicians, hospital staff and patients can feel confident that every precaution has been taken to ensure a successful outcome and avoid unintentional damage that may not be apparent until a patient awakens.

RELATED ARTICLES

1) Sawaya, Raymond MD; Hammoud, Maarouf MD; Schoppa, Derek MD; Hess, Kenneth R. PhD; Wu, Shu Z. MD; Shi, Wei-Ming MD; Wildrick, David M. PhD Neurosurgical Outcomes in a Modern Series of 400 Craniotomies for Treatment of Parenchymal Tumors. Neurosurgery. 42(5):1044-1055, May 1998.

2) Andreas Hartmann, Thomas Hupp, Hans-Christian Koch, Peter Dollinger, Christian Stapf, Regina Schmidt, Christoph Hofmeister, JohnL.P. Thompson, Peter Marxa, Henning Mast Prospective Study on the Complication Rate of Carotid Surgery Cerebrovasc Dis 1999;9:152-156