The unsuccessful placement of a deep brain stimulation electrode due to a brain shift induced by air invasion: case report.

The accuracy of leads implantation in deep brain stimulation (DBS) is governed by several factors including imaging distortion, error registration and mechanical inaccuracy of the frame. An additional factor is ‘brain shift’ which may be the consequence of intracranial air invasion and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) outflow. Recently, several studies have studied the impact of brain shift during stereotactic procedure [1–3]. The authors reported a case of a patient who had bilateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) implantation for Parkinson’s disease (PD) with the unsuccessful placement of the second definitive electrode due to an air invasion.