Neck treatment harms may involve both patient selection and technique
A review of reported serious adverse events found many assessable cases potentially preventable, while leaving the overall risk of these procedures unknown.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Among reports with enough detail to assess, most serious adverse events appeared potentially preventable. Reviewers identified problems with both patient selection and treatment delivery, including technique and continuing care despite adverse symptoms. These judgments concern selected case reports; they cannot tell us how often harm occurs across all neck procedures.
Only 176 of 334 cases had sufficient information for assessment. Case reports lack a denominator of all procedures, so the reported preventability proportion is not a measure of procedure risk.
What researchers found
Serious events judged potentially preventable
Descriptive classification of sufficiently documented reports; no comparator or overall reporting period was specified in the abstract.
What reviewers examined
The assessment considered missed diagnoses, risk factors and contraindications alongside treatment problems. Examples included improper technique, untrained operators, treatment without an indication, and continuing interventions that were ineffective or accompanied by adverse symptoms.
What preventable means here
Potential preventability was a retrospective judgment based on the information in each report. It does not prove that different care would have avoided every event, or quantify the effectiveness of a particular safety measure.
The original publication
Are serious adverse events associated with conservative physical procedures of the neck potentially preventable? A sub-analysis of a systematic review.
Leung B, Treleaven J, Marsh L et al.
J Bodyw Mov Ther · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 40954648
- Record checked
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