0208: Interventional Ultrasound: Cases That Went Wrong

Abstract

The risk of major complications, defined as those complications inducing a significant worsening of the clinical condition of the patient and require substantial care (e. g., blood transfusion, resuscitation, surgery) with delayed hospital discharge or renewed hospitalization, has been reported to be between 0.05% to 0.23%.These figures are low and many especially young doctors seem to think that this means complications never happen. In the department where I work we perform about 2,000 interventional procedures each year ranging from simple punctures, drainages and biopsies to RF treatment often in patients with an increased risk of bleeding. Even though the risk of complications is low, the large number of procedures we perform unfortunately will cause major complications to happen every year.For obvious reasons I cannot give details of the patient stories in this abstract as there have been legal aspects following some of the complications. However, there will be presented cases with major complications and even deaths following biopsy, drainage, RF treatment, steroid injections and more. The cases are collected from me and my colleagues in Denmark during the last 4 years. All complications occurred after interventional procedures performed by highly experienced doctors (level 3).In retrospect some of the complications could maybe have been avoided had appropriate measures been taken. This is not a consecutive series where one can calculate the risk of complications; rather the complications presented were selected for this lecture because there may be a learning point in them. The risk of major complications, defined as those complications inducing a significant worsening of the clinical condition of the patient and require substantial care (e. g., blood transfusion, resuscitation, surgery) with delayed hospital discharge or renewed hospitalization, has been reported to be between 0.05% to 0.23%. These figures are low and many especially young doctors seem to think that this means complications never happen. In the department where I work we perform about 2,000 interventional procedures each year ranging from simple punctures, drainages and biopsies to RF treatment often in patients with an increased risk of bleeding. Even though the risk of complications is low, the large number of procedures we perform unfortunately will cause major complications to happen every year. For obvious reasons I cannot give details of the patient stories in this abstract as there have been legal aspects following some of the complications. However, there will be presented cases with major complications and even deaths following biopsy, drainage, RF treatment, steroid injections and more. The cases are collected from me and my colleagues in Denmark during the last 4 years. All complications occurred after interventional procedures performed by highly experienced doctors (level 3). In retrospect some of the complications could maybe have been avoided had appropriate measures been taken. This is not a consecutive series where one can calculate the risk of complications; rather the complications presented were selected for this lecture because there may be a learning point in them.