50 Years Ago in CORR: Anterior Excision and Vertebral Body Fusion for Intervertebral Disk Syndromes of the Lower Lumbar Spine: Three- to Five-Year Results in 224 Cases Paul H. Harmon, MD, FACS CORR 1963;26:107–127

Excerpt

Most contemporary reports of the results of surgical procedures routinely describe complications. (A symposium in this issue—Volume 470 Issue No. 6 of CORR—is devoted to complications of spinal surgery.) Harmon, in 1960 [1] and 1963 [2], described in detail an anterior surgical approach for treating disc protrusion and degenerated discs, “utilizing a surgical approach that is free of the hazard of blood loss and where vision of the pathology is optimal” [1]. Complications were not always emphasized in reports from the literature of that time. In these two articles, Harmon mentions medical complications only several times, despite reporting large numbers of cases (250 in the 1960 article and 650 in the 1963 article): “…there has been only a single case (from a total of 550 cases) with neurologic complications…” and “The mortality has been nil, neurologic complications negligible, and the morbidity from all causes has been less than 1 per cent” [2]. He considered pseudarthrosis a “severe complication.” …