Minimally Invasive Spine Specialist: What’s different.
A minimally invasive spine specialist can provide spine surgery with far less damage to tissue and blood loss than a more invasive technique. A shorter hospital stay, reduced post-operative pain, smaller scars and quicker recovery are also benefits of obtaining spinal surgery from one of these spine specialist.
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In the past, spinal surgery could require as much as a year of recovery before a patient could return to normal activity levels. Minimally invasive techniques have altered the landscape of spinal surgery, improving a patient’s quality of life more rapidly than conventional techniques. Traditional spinal surgery, of necessity, requires a long recovery period and involves a lengthy patient incision. Minimally invasive surgery involves significantly smaller incisions, approximately 1 to 1.5 centimeters in size, and the use of a small instrument similar to a tiny telescope, called an endoscope. The endoscope is attached to a small video camera – smaller than a thumbnail. The camera then projects an inside-look at the patient’s body on television monitors in the operating room. These images serve as a guide to lead the minimally invasive spine specialist through the procedure. Minimally invasive spinal surgery is as safe or safer than traditional spinal surgery when performed by a qualified minimally invasive spine specialist.
Should a spine fusion be required once of these spine specialists can reduce the risk of ligament disruption and muscle retraction, loss of support and stability which can occur from traditional open spinal fusion procedures. A minimally invasive spine specialist will utilize a fusion system designed to place pedicle screws on either side of the vertebral bone and rods connecting the screws into the spine. This precise procedure uses several small skin incisions rather than one long incision. The minimally invasive spine specialist is guided in this process by anatomical images projected in the operating room. The advantage to this technique is that overall trauma to the back muscle and tendons is reduced and post-operative pain and scarring is also lessened greatly. Deformity corrections and herniated disc surgery can also be addressed successfully by this type of procedure.
