Small Bowel Perforation as a Postoperative Complication from a Laminectomy

Chronic low back pain is one of the leading chief complaints affecting adults in the United States. As a result, this increases the percentage of patients that will eventually undergo surgical intervention to alleviate debilitating, chronic symptoms. A 37-year-old woman presented ten hours postoperatively after a lumbar laminectomy with an acute abdomen due to the extraordinarily rare complication of small bowel injury secondary to deep surgical penetration.