Handbook of Surgical Complications in Orthopaedics 2026

Every orthopaedic surgeon has faced that moment - the popliteal artery bleeding into the posterior capsule, the MEP amplitude dropping 65% mid-correction, the cauda equina symptoms called in at 2 AM - and what happens in the next sixty seconds determines whether that patient walks out of hospital.

When surgeons face intraoperative crises without a structured decision framework, they improvise - and improvisation under pressure produces delayed recognition, the wrong first move, and recoverable complications that become permanent.

This handbook builds the clinical architecture that converts every major orthopaedic surgical crisis into a sequenced decision, so the next intraoperative emergency is managed with precision, not instinct alone.

Inside this book:

• The Intraoperative Crisis Decision Atlas - 20 structured crisis entries across 7 operative domains, each with an immediate decision pivot, trap logic, and outcome anchor built for rapid on-call reference
• Vertebral artery injury during ACDF - the tamponade sequence, blood pressure protocol, and angiography activation that reduces posterior circulation stroke risk before the field fills
• Postoperative cauda equina syndrome - the 6-hour decompression window, MRI urgency criteria, and anticoagulation reversal that determines neurological recovery
• Syndesmotic malreduction, ACL tunnel malposition, periprosthetic fracture - each addressed at the intraoperative moment when correction is still possible
• Paediatric physeal arrest, DDH avascular necrosis, scoliosis MEP decline - the surveillance and management frameworks that prevent deformity accumulating across years of growth
• Oncological limb salvage and positive frozen section margins - decision frameworks for the most biologically hostile operative environment in the specialty

For orthopaedic surgeons, trauma fellows, arthroplasty and spine trainees, sports medicine registrars, and every surgical practitioner whose list includes the procedures that generate these complications.

Every patient deserves a surgeon who already knows what comes next - add this to your library before your next case.