Simple Intraoperative Technique for Hemostasis of Cervical Venous Bleeding

To the Editor:

We read the article by Tomas Menovsky and Dirk De Ridder,¹ about hemostasis of cervical venous bleeding, with great interest in May 2008. In this article, the authors used a 5 to 10 mL saline application with syringe to promote hemostasis of venous bleeding in anterior cervical discectomy.¹ We used this technique in 142 cervical anterior discectomy patients between 2008 and 2015. Thirty-four of these patients were 2-level discectomy patients. The technique succeeded in stopping all of these patients' bleeding from uncovertebral junction venous structures instantaneously as mentioned in the article. Only 2 patients needed more than 1 attempt, and we didn't need to use any other hemostatic agents.

As the authors already mentioned, intraoperative hemostasis in neurosurgery is one of the most important procedures during surgery. Although there are many chemical agents, gel foams, or oxidized cellulose for hemostasis, this technique is the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way for hemostasis of cervical venous bleeding.

We advocate that this technique should be the first choice in anterior cervical discectomy venous bleeding for all neurosurgeons and spine surgeons when invisible venous bleeding hemostasis is necessary. We thank both authors for this very useful article.