Surgical complications of functional neurosurgery treating movement disorders: results with anatomical localisation

Thalamic and pallidal lesions can alleviate movement disorders, but to achieve this safely and efficaciously requires accurate target localization. We report the surgical complications encountered using an anatomical localization technique to create 121 thalamic and pallidal lesions in 79 consecutive patients over a 3 year period. There was no perioperative mortality, although there was one late death indirectly related to surgery. The risk of haemorrhage was 3.3% per lesion made. Anatomical localization offers a relatively safe way of identifying targets for functional neurosurgery, with complication rates which compare favourably with the published literature.