Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

What is minimally invasive spine surgery?

Minimally invasive surgery uses several small incisions rather than the traditional method of making a large cut through your soft tissues to access your spine.

Your surgeon at Inland Neurosurgery Institute (INI) inserts an instrument called a retractor into the incision that separates your muscle fibers rather than cutting them. This creates a channel through which your surgeon can work on your spine using specialized surgical instruments.

There are two ways for your surgeon to view your spine during minimally invasive spine surgery. One is to use a surgical microscope that enhances the view of your spine; another is to use an endoscope, which is a narrow tube fitted with a video camera and a light.

The endoscope relays clear images of your spine to a monitor in the operating room that your surgeon uses to guide the instruments. Inland Neurosurgery Institute (INI) has multiple, well-respected spine surgeons who specialize in performing operations using these tissue-sparing techniques.

What kind of minimally invasive spine surgery might I need?

There are many procedures for which the Inland Neurosurgery Institute (INI) team uses minimally invasive spine surgery techniques. Some they perform regularly include:

Discectomy or microdiscectomy

A discectomy is surgery to remove a herniated disc that's compressing nerves in your spine. Microdiscectomy is a similar procedure in which your surgeon removes the damaged section of a disc and leaves the healthy part.

Spinal fusion

Spinal fusion helps stabilize your spine after a discectomy or other spine surgery procedure. Your surgeon implants a bone graft into the space left by the extracted disc, which fuses with the vertebrae on either side. Inland Neurosurgery Institute (INI) surgeons excel at performing advanced operations like extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF).

What benefits does minimally invasive spine surgery offer?

Minimally invasive spine surgery offers several notable advantages compared to open surgery, including:

• Less bleeding
• Lower risk of infection
• Less postoperative pain
• Smaller scars
• Faster recovery

New methods and state-of-the-art technologies are helping spine surgeons perform increasingly sophisticated procedures using minimally invasive techniques.

To find out if you can get relief from back and neck pain with minimally invasive spine surgery, call Inland Neurosurgery Institute (INI) today or request an appointment online.