Letter to the editor regarding: “Malpractice litigation in elective lumbar spinal fusion: a comprehensive review of reported legal claims in the US in the past 50 years” by Zhang et al. Highlight the question in Europe

In 2022 Zhang et al. reported an interesting article about the results of analysis of reported claims in United States (US) that suggest that medical malpractice litigation involving elective lumbar spine fusion is associated with expensive jury verdicts per case, with the most common alleged malpractice being intraoperative error and failure to obtain informed consent. Although surgeon specialty, fellowship training, procedure type, and institution type were not associated with greater litigation risks, ALIF surgery had a significantly higher risk of involving claims of excessive or inappropriate surgery than posterior approaches for lumbar fusion. The reported situation with widely increased activity in surgery for lumbar degenerative disease and a consequent growing number of compensation claims in Italy is similar. Spine surgery can be a demanding and stressful surgical specialty associated with a non-negligible occurrence of perioperative complications, refractory postoperative pain, or neurological deficits.