Adverse events in spine surgery in Sweden

Figures & data

Table 1. Degree of disability and gender distribution for compensated patient claims from the County Councils' Mutual Insurance Company, from 2003 through 2005 (n = 139)

Degree of disability	Male, n	Female, n	Total, n
Period of sick leave but no permanent disability	16	16	32
1–15%	39	46	85
16–30%	5	5	10
Over 30%	4	8	12
Total	64	75	139

Table 2. The distribution of complications found in medical records regarding patient claims to the County Councils' Mutual Insurance Company and complications reported to Swespine, from 2003 through 2005. (A patient could have more than 1 complication)

Type of complication	No. of complications found in the review of claims to the County Councils' Mutual Insurance Company (n = 182)	No. of complications registered in the Swespine national quality register (n = 119)
Dural lesion	56	27
Infection	34	1
Implant problem	18	9
Hematoma	16	7
Wrong level	8	0
Nerve tear	31	8
Other	47	22
Total	210	74

Table 3. Distribution of complications, distribution of combinations of complications, and the degree of disability in compensated patient claims to the County Councils' Mutual Insurance Company, from 2003 through 2005 (n = 139)

Type of complication or combination of complications	Sick leave period but no permanent disability	Degree of disability
		1–15%	16–30%	Over 30%	Total
Dural lesion	4	12	1	4	21
+ hematoma	0	1	0	1	2
+ nerve tear	1	7	1	0	9
+ implant problem	0	2	0	0	2
+ infection	4	2	0	0	6
Subtotal					40
Infection	8	12	0	1	21
+ hematoma	0	1	0	0	1
+ other	1	0	0	0	1
Subtotal					23
Nerve tear	0	13	3	0	16
+ implant problem	1	4	1	0	6
Subtotal					22
Implant problem	0	4	1	0	5
+ hematoma	0	1	0	0	1
+ other	1	2	0	0	3
Subtotal					9
Hematoma	0	4	2	3	9
Wrong level	3	5	0	0	8
Other	9	15	1	3	28
Total	32	85	10	12	139

Table 4. Average score for clinical outcome and the average score for improvement after 1 year for all patient claims and for the patients with dural lesions, compared with general data from Swespine from 2003 through 2005

Outcome variable	All patient claims including patients with dural lesions (n = 87)		Patient claims for patients with dural lesions (n = 20)	Swespine (n = 7,819)
	Average score (SD)	95% CI	Average score (SD)	Average score
Back pain (VAS), 1 year	40 (29)	34–46	50 (30)	31
Back pain, improvement (VAS)	22 (32)	15–30	8 (30)	23
Leg pain (VAS), 1 year	43 (30)	36–49	45 (29)	29
Leg pain, improvement (VAS)	19 (39)	10–28	19 (31)	30
EQ, 1 year	0.38 (0.34)	0.30–0.46	0.35 (0.29)	0.62
EQ, improvement	0.19 (0.38)	0.10–0.28	0.10 (0.26)	0.33
ODI, 1 year	37 (19)	33–42	41 (18)	26
ODI, improvement	11 (22)	5–17	6 (16)	20

VAS: visual analog scale; EQ: EuroQol; ODI: Oswestry disability index.