Spine Surgery Procedures You Must Know About

Traditionally, spine surgery is typically performed as open surgery. This entails opening the operative site with an extended incision therefore the surgeon can view and access the spinal anatomy. However, technology has advanced to the purpose where more spine conditions are often treated with minimally invasive techniques.

Because minimally invasive spine surgery (MISS), doesn't involve long incisions, open manipulation of the muscles and tissue surrounding the spine is avoided, therefore, leading to shorter operative time. In general, reducing intraoperative (during surgery) manipulation of sentimental tissues leads to less postoperative pain and a faster recovery.

Traditional open spine surgery involves the complete exposure of anatomy. In minimally invasive spine surgery we see much less of the anatomy which suggests, in many cases, a neater recovery for the patient. In minimally invasive spine surgery, we frequently use additional data, like CAT scans, final navigations, and 3D images to accomplish an equivalent outcome as traditional/open surgery.

Surgical Approaches

Whether open surgery or MISS, the spine is often accessed from different directions. These are mentioned as surgical approaches and are explained below:

Anterior approach: as the name implies, the surgeon during this approach, accesses the spine from the front of your body, through the abdomen.

Posterior approach: An incision is formed in your back.

Lateral Approach: The pathway to your spine is formed through your side.

Common spine surgical procedures

There are a variety of conditions that will cause spine surgery. Common procedures include:

●Discectomy or Microdiscectomy: Removal of a herniated intervertebral disk. Therefore, removing pressure from the compressed nerve. Microdiscectomy is a MISS procedure. Survival spine surgery comes under this category.

●Laminectomy: Removal of the skinny bony plate on the rear of the vertebra called the laminae to extend space within the vertebral canal and relieve pressure.

●Laminotomy: Removal of some of the neural arch (lamina) that covers the medulla spinalis. A laminotomy removes less bone than a laminectomy.

Both laminectomy and laminotomy are decompression procedures. “Decompression” translates into meaning that tissue pressing a spinal nerve is removed.

●Foraminotomy: Removal of bone or tissue at/in the passageway (called the neuroforamen) where nerve roots branch off the medulla spinalis and exit the vertebral column .

●Disc Replacement: As an alternative to fusion, the injured disc is replaced with a man-made one.

●Spinal Fusion: A surgical technique wont to join two vertebrae. Spinal fusion may include the utilization of bone graft with or without instrumentation (eg, rods, screws). There are different types of bone graft, like your own bone (autograft) and donor bone (allograft).