Wrong-Sided Surgery

Intraoperative Imaging for Verification of the Correct Level During Spinal Surgery

“…In current spinal surgical activity it is not difficult to encounter repeat lumbar discectomies, scheduled on the same day; cases involving same-level, different-side disc herniations or vice versa strongly ressemble an assembly line, which involves an increased potential gross error [9]; the surgeon is in a hurry and the first step he disregards to spare time is fluoroscopic control for level identification.…”

The 'nightmare' of wrong level in spine surgery: a critical appraisal

“…was directed obviously to avoidance of wrong site surgery at the thoracic region, which indeed may be considered a pure surgical problem, other factors identified as crucial to decrease the rate of wrong level spinal (usually lumbar) operations must be remembered once again. Fatigue, sense of inferiority, external forces pressing the whole surgical team to complete a crowded operative session quickly, or a mixture of them, represent an explosive cocktail; and this is even more true, if you consider the current occurrence of repeat lumbar spine operations, strongly resembling one another, scheduled on the same day: such a scenario is not so dissimilar from an assembly line, which implies a high potential for gross error [6]. …”