Arteriovenous fistula following lumbar disc surgery--the use of total cardiopulmonary bypass during repair.

Arteriovenous fistula is a rare complication of lumbar disc surgery and there is often a delay in diagnosis. A patient who developed multi-system failure associated with an aortocaval fistula, which occurred following a lumbar disc operation, is presented in this study. Surgical repair was facilitated by the use of total cardiopulmonary bypass which enabled a degree of safety and control that would have been difficult to obtain with standard methods.