Epidural hematomas after the implantation of thoracic paddle spinal cord stimulators

Abstract

Objective: There is little information on the frequency of symptomatic epidural hematomas after the implantation of paddle spinal cord stimulators (SCSs) in the thoracic spine. The purpose of this paper is to provide this metric and compare it to the frequency of symptomatic epidural hematomas for all other thoracic laminectomies combined. Methods: This study involved retrospectively analyzing the experience of a single surgeon in a consecutive series of patients who underwent the implantation of a thoracic paddle SCS with respect to the occurrence of a symptomatic epidural hematoma. For comparison, the occurrence of a symptomatic epidural hematoma in non-SCS thoracic laminectomies done during the same period of time was determined. Results: One hundred fifty-four thoracic paddle SCSs were implanted between May 2002 and February 2015. Despite perfect hemostasis and no preoperative risk factors, 4 of 154 patients (2.60%) developed postoperative lower-extremity weakness caused by an epidural hematoma. There were no other causes of a neurological deficit. In 3 of the 4 patients, the symptoms were delayed. Over the same time period, only 1 of 119 patients (0.84%) developed a postoperative motor deficit from a symptomatic epidural hematoma after a non-SCS laminectomy. Conclusions: The occurrence of epidural hematomas after thoracic paddle SCS implantation may be underreported. Suggestions are given to decrease its incidence. It seems paradoxical that an epidural hematoma occurred 3 times more often after small SCS thoracic laminectomies than after larger non-SCS thoracic laminectomies. If confirmed by future studies, this finding may suggest that the intrusion of instruments into a confined epidural sublaminar space or the presence of a paddle and a hematoma in this restricted space may account for this differential.