OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the possible complications associated to the removal of the insertion of the anterior iliac crest in surgery to the anterior cervical arthrodesis, especially to the residual pain. METHODS: the retrospective study with the medical records analysis and the application of a form by telephone with 20 patients in a period from August 2008 to November 2009 were performed. All patients were submitted to the same surgical technique for the crest extraction, and were operated by the same team at Hospital das Clínidas da Unicamp (HC Unicamp). The variants analyzed were: residual, pain infection rate, neurologic or vascular lesion and occurrence of the fracture of the iliac wing. The data was placed in a table and the average and percentage were calculated. RESULTS: of the 20 patients, 12 men and 8 women, with average age of 51.75 years (29-74) and mean follow-up of 11,83 months (2-29), we did not find any serious lesion like fracture, arterial or neurologic lesion. There was a case of superficial infection (5%), and 25% of the patients complained about light discomfort and not incapacitating difficulty to prowl. CONCLUSION: the removal of the anterior iliac crest is associated to many complications. It is important to know of other insertion options and make the patient aware of the possible complications. Through this research, we did not find any serious complications, and the patients' percentage with residual pain are the same as in the literature, and can be diminished through a careful dissection of the iliac crest.
Arthrodesis; Bone insertion; Comorbidity; Dissection
