Is Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Right for You?

If you require surgery to treat a spine disorder, you may be wondering which type of procedure is best for you: open surgery or minimally invasive spine surgery. While all spine surgeries were once performed as open surgery, medical advances now allow them to be performed with tiny incisions. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at minimally invasive spine surgery so you can better understand the treatment plan set out for you by Dr. Sharma.

Before surgery, doctors use imaging, such as a CT scan or MRI, to plan out the procedure. The diagnosis will dictate which area of the body will require surgical intervention. For example, a minimally invasive spine surgery may access the spine from the rear of the body (posterior), the side (lateral), or the front (anterior).

Surgeons can use special imaging, such as fluoroscopy, to envision anatomical landmarks and to guide instruments. Once the surgery is completed, postoperative imaging confirms the placement of rods, screws, plates, or other devices that may support the spine.

A number of spinal disorders can be treated using minimally invasive procedures. For example, a patient may be experiencing inflammation and pain due to a herniated or bulging disc. This pain may even affect a nearby arm or leg. A traditional open surgery, such as discectomy, can now be performed as a microdiscectomy or microdecompression to remove the disc matter that is pressing on a nerve, causing the pan. A laminotomy and laminectomy, as well as spinal fusion surgery, are additional procedures that may be performed with minimally invasive techniques.

Doctors and patients alike appreciate the benefit of not having to cut muscles or soft tissues with minimally invasive surgery. Instead, retractors dilate the tissues – in other words, the muscles and tissues are pulled aside so a series of dilation tubes can be advanced into the operative site.

Overall, minimally invasive procedures help to shorten a patient’s hospital stay, reduce blood loss during surgery, lessen muscle and tissue injury, reduce to risk of infection, and more. Please get in touch with Dr. Sharma to discuss additional benefits of minimally invasive spine surgery and whether this procedure is right for you.