Case Report Abdominal Aortocaval Vascular Injury following Routine

Copyright © 2014 Matthew Leech et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Vascular complications following spinal surgery are potentially fatal; however, fortunately they are rare. This risk is often focused on the close proximity of the surgical field to retroperitoneal structures. Prompt diagnosis is essential; however, bleeding is often occult, and thismay therefore delaymanagement of this condition.Despite previous reportsmany cliniciansmaynot be aware of this potentially fatal complication. The overall morbidity and mortality may be reduced by prompt diagnosis and treatment. Clinicians must, therefore, have a high degree of suspicion in all patients who undergo spinal surgery. We therefore present a case of a 51-year-old man who sustained an aortocaval injury during a revisional lumbar discectomy.The patient developed refractory hypotension, which deteriorated into PEA arrest. Emergency laparotomywas performedwhich revealed an aortocaval injury. Immediate primary vascular repair was successfully performed. The patient was resuscitated and made a full recovery. 1