It’s an unspoken problem within surgery – patients are suffering vascular damage during the procedure that often proves fatal. One surgeon, practising at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, UK, has highlighted the problem by opening up his casebook covering the last 21 years. During this time, 71 per cent of the patients with vascular damage were the victims of doctor error. Most of the accidents happened during an angioplasty operation. The patients lived for an average of seven years after sustaining the damage. (Source: World Journal of Surgery, 2010; 4 June 2010; e-published ahead of print).
