Tourette syndrome (TS) bears a higher rate of inflammatory complications at the implanted hardware in deep brain stimulation (DBS).

BACKGROUND: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a commonly performed surgical technique for the treatment of movement disorders, and recent surgical trials concerning the treatment of a wider range of disorders have recently been published. Despite DBS being non-ablative and minimally invasive, numerous complications and side effects have been recorded. In particular, concerning the growing interest in novel indications for DBS, an enthusiastic approach has put neurosurgeons at risk of underestimating some of the complications that might be associated with specific characters of the treated disease.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to evaluate hardware failures and rates of infective complications in correlation to the different indications to DBS, in order to ascertain whether DBS in Tourette syndrome (TS) is characterized by specific risks and pitfalls.

METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed our experience of 531 procedures on 272 patients treated for various movement disorders, among which 39 patients were treated for conservative treatmentrefractory TS.

RESULTS: A statistically significant association of infective complications was found with the TS subgroup.

CONCLUSIONS: It is our belief that specific behavioral characters of the TS patients may be put into association with this specific complication and need to be considered carefully when indicating DBS as treatment of choice for these patients.