Common surgical complications in degenerative spinal surgery.

The rapid growth of spine degenerative surgery has led to unrelenting efforts to define and prevent possible complications, the incidence of which is probably higher than that reported and varies according to the region of the spine involved (cervical and thoracolumbar) and the severity of the surgery. Several issues are becoming progressively clearer, such as complication rates in primary versus revision spinal surgery, complications in the elderly, the contribution of minimally invasive surgery to the reduction of complication rate. In this paper the most common surgical complications in degenerative spinal surgery are outlined and discussed.