General Complications Related to Patient Positioning

Successful surgery necessarily begins with the proper positioning of the patient [1–3], which is a key point to gain good operative exposure and to prevent the potential complications of excessive pressure on neural or vascular structures [1]. This is an important aspect of cervical spinal surgery, because of the deep and often inaccessible structures, the required accuracy for the determination of level, and the inherent risks of the positions themselves. Several complications have been reported as consequences of patient malpositioning during operative procedures to the cervical spine [4–7]. In cervical spine surgery, the supine patient position is used for anterior approaches, the prone or sitting position for posterior approaches, and the lateral or sitting approaches for circumferential approaches. Obviously, each of these positions will determine different risks.