How Do Traditional Spine Surgery and Minimally Invasive Spine (MIS) Surgery differ?
At McKinley Orthopedics, Sport Medicine and Spine in Fairbanks Alaska, we are proud to offer both of these options should you require spinal surgery. Traditional open spine surgery involves the complete exposure of the anatomy. In minimally invasive spine surgery we expose less of the anatomy which means may mean an earlier recovery in the first few weeks after surgery. In minimally invasive spine surgery, we often use additional surgical aids, such as intraoperative spinal navigation. This provides your surgeon greater visibility into surgical areas with limited exposure.
Whether minimally invasive or traditional, the goals are the same for the long-term; we want to accomplish overall improvement in symptoms or a halt in degeneration for all of our Alaska patients. Ultimately, we want our procedures to result in less blood loss, shorter hospital stays, lower infection rates and faster recovery in the weeks following surgery for all patients. Minimally invasive surgery typically results in an easier recovery process for patients, however, not every patient or surgical condition is appropriate for minimally invasive surgery. It is important that you partner with your spine surgeon to identify the best treatment option for your condition.
Surgery is a controlled trauma. Therefore, we aim to maximize the benefit for the patient while minimizing the trauma of surgery as much as possible. We implement leading surgical techniques and technology as appropriate, and our patients benefit from our surgeons’ academic research to further both minimally invasive and complex spine surgery procedures.
Some examples of minimally invasive procedures that the spine team at McKinley Orthopedics, Sports Medicine and Spine in Alaska offers are:
- ACDF
- Cervical Disc Replacement
- Lumbar and Thoracic Microdiscectomy
- Cervical Posterior Laminoforaminotomy
- Direct Lateral Interbody Fusion (DLIF, sometimes called XLIF)
- Percutaneous Pedicle Screw Placement
If you find yourself in need of lumbar, thoracic or cervical spine surgery, speak with the spine team at McKinley Ortho whether or not minimally invasive spine surgery is right for you