Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
Treatment > Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
Also known as MISS (Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeries), they offer significant benefits over traditional open surgeries. The traditional long skin incision often causes significant damage to muscles and ligaments surrounding the spine. The advancement in spine surgery procedure and techniques enable surgeons to perform spine surgeries without involving a long skin incision. Most spine surgeons nowadays opt for minimally invasive spine surgery to cause minimal damage to the muscles and ligament surrounding the spine by using smaller skin incisions. In addition to reducing risk of muscle and ligament damage, minimally invasive spine surgery (MISS) even reduces infection, prevent blood loss, and reduce recovery time significantly.
- Conditions Treated Using MISS Procedures
Like open surgery, MISS procedures also help surgeons to treat a variety of spinal problems and conditions surgically. Most skilled surgeons nowadays prefer MISS procedure to conventional open surgery to cause minimal damage to the muscles and ligaments surrounding the spine using a smaller instrument whose length ranges from 5 inches to 6 inches. They even perform MISS procedure to treat spinal infections, deformities, and instability as well as spinal tumours, herniated disc, degenerative disc diseases, and vertebral compression fractures
- MISS Fusion and Decompression Procedure
The surgeon can perform MISS fusion and decompression procedure in a number of ways. But most spine surgeons perform MISS procedure using a tubular retractor. After creating a small skin incision, they insert the tubular retractor through the skin and soft tissues to access the spinal column. The retractor helps surgeons to access the damaged spinal area by creating a small tunnel. Also, the retractor keeps the muscles open while the surgeon performs the specific spine surgery. Once the surgery is over, the surgeon returns the muscles into their normal position by removing the tubular retractor. Many skilled surgeons even optimize the MISS procedure using more advanced devices and commonly used anaesthesia.
- Risks Associated with MISS Procedure
As noted earlier, MISS procedure, unlike conventional open surgery, does not cause significant damage to the patient’s spinal area. Also, the MISS surgery techniques help patient to recover quickly and shorten hospital stays. But the recovery period may vary from one patient to another. Also, it is always important for the patients to understand the risks associated with MISS treatment. For instance, MISS procedure may lead to unexpected blood loss during the surgery and make the patient experience consistent pain at the spinal area. There are also chances that blood clots may form in the legs or nerves or blood vessels may be injured.
Most spine surgeons nowadays prefer MISS to conventional open surgeries to cause minimal damage to the patient’s spinal area. But the skilled spine surgeons always evaluate the health condition of the patient elaborately before recommending MISS procedure. They even make the patient understand the major risks and benefit of undergoing minimally invasive spine surgery .
