Abstract

Introduction: The external ventricular shunt is an emergency procedure allowing the evacuation of cerebrospinal fluid to the outside by placing a ventricular catheter connected to an external drainage bag. There are several factors which may be responsible for the occurrence of complications. The aim of our study was to collect all the external ventricular shunts performed in neurosurgery, to work on their different complications and to establish a comparison with the data in the literature.

Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive study using a retrospective approach about a period of 8 years, from January 2010 to December 2018, on the files of patients who had received an EVS during their hospitalisation at the neurosurgery clinic of the Fann hospital in Dakar.

Results: During our study period 100 patients benefited External Ventricular Shunts that represented 8.8% frequency of EVS with an average age of 30.19 years, a male predominance, a sex ratio M/F of 1.12. Thirty EVS were complicated, i.e. 30%, and mechanical complications represented 50% of the complications compared with 40% of those that were infectious. The management of infectious complications with biologic antibiotic therapy was the effective means and the average duration of treatment was 18 days. The post-therapy evolution had found a cure in 47% and the death rate in 53%.

Conclusion: The frequency of complications related to EVS has shown us that they are not part of negligible surgical procedures, which can be placed in any condition and left unattended. It is important that this procedure be performed in an aseptic technical platform environment, by a well experienced surgeon and for a short period of time, while insisting on close monitoring and reduction of time in place.

Keywords: External Ventricular Shunt; Complications; Neurosurgery; Dakar

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Citation

Citation: Mouhameth Faye., et al. “External Shunt Complications in a Series of 100 Cases". Acta Scientific Neurology 4.1 (2021): 50-54.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Mualaba Celebre., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.