Complications related with implanted devices in patients with Parkinson's disease treated with deep brain stimulation. A study of a series of 124 patients over a period of 16 years

Introduction. Establishing protocols of the best candidates for deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson's disease and a greater knowledge of the technique have increased its safety profile. Yet, the complications related with implanted devices still occur with a far-from-negligible frequency and have both an economic and clinical impact. Aim. From a broad series of patients undergoing deep brain stimulation included consecutively for the treatment of their Parkinson's disease, data concerning the complications related with implanted devices were gathered and compared with those in the literature. Patients and methods. Altogether 124 patients with a total of 242 implanted electrodes and 252 generator replacements were included in the study. Mean follow-up time was 8.4 years (range: 3-16 years). Data on all the complications related with implanted devices were collected retrospectively. Results. Findings showed that 23 implanted device-related complications occurred (17.7% of the patients): 12 (9.6%) had culture-positive ulcers, five (4%) had culture-negative ulcers, four (3.2%) were left with infections following generator replacement, one (0.8%) had a generator malfunction, and electrode migration took place in one (0.8%). Significant differences were observed as regards the effectiveness of the treatment involving surgical revision of the ulcers, which suggests that the culture-negative ulcers responded to the surgical revision better than the culture-positive ulcers (80% healing versus 16.6%; p = 0.028). Conclusions. The results observed in the series were comparable to those in the existing literature. The presence of culture-positivity in the ulcers is a factor forecasting surgical revision.