Introduction: Psoas hematoma is an uncommon complication following spinal surgeries. It has been reported in both extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF) and posterior spinal fusion with instrumentation. Minimally invasive techniques are gaining popularity in recent years due to the appealing advantages of reduced operative time, blood loss, hospital stay, and faster recovery. Case Presentation: We are presenting a case of a 77-year-old male with chronic low back pain, diagnosed to have multilevel degenerative disc disease with central and foraminal disc protrusion at L2-L3, L3-L4, L4-L5 with secondary spinal stenosis, underwent XLIF at L3-L4, L4-L5 and then 2nd stage with posterior L3-L5 fusion with pedicle screws. On the fourth day post-operatively, the patient had flank pain and dropping hemoglobin with femoral nerve palsy symptoms, a CT scan revealed a large psoas hematoma. Conservative management was decided on; a follow-up CT scan and examination showed complete resolution of the hematoma and femoral nerve recovery. Discussion: The approach to iliopsoas hematoma post spinal surgeries remains controversial. Iliopsoas hematoma should be suspected in any patients post spinal surgeries even with delayed presentations. The decision to proceed with either surgical intervention or conservative management depends on multiple factors, including patient hemodynamic status, progression of collection and femoral nerve palsy. Conclusion: The exact cause of iliopsoas hematoma post different spinal surgery approaches remains vague. In our opinion, other causes including pre-and post-operative anticoagulants should be investigated. Rushing to drain iliopsoas hematomas in case of femoral nerve palsy might not be the ideal option. Instead, monitoring patient responses to resuscitation and taking a watch and wait approach for femoral nerve palsy might be the proper approach.
Al-Rabiah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.