Our Approach to Minimally Invasive Fusion Repair

Fusion procedures have really endured a terrible reputation and in many cases rightfully so. In the early 1950s doctors had no way of identifying what was painful and what was not, and most important, where the pain was coming from. Fusions were done fairly indiscriminately and it was just routine to fuse the bottom two levels and hope the pain would go away. Thus fusion got a bad reputation because it was done on a large patient population for which the procedures weren’t designed for in the first place. If the joint doesn’t hurt the patient, then stabilizing the spine it isn’t going to help them.

Now we have MRI scans and can easily determine whether or not someone actually needs a fusion. At The Minimally Invasive Spine Institute we have taken that a step further and have a pain mapping process that identifies the exact source of the pain so we work only on the pain source and don’t fuse something that doesn’t need to be. The Minimally Invasive Spine Institute performs minimally invasive fusion only as a last resort and with a spinescope and percutaneous techniques with image guidance system without violating the muscle tissues. So no tearing and excess bleeding that leads to a long and painful recovery. The patient will get out of bed the same day and will go home as early as the same day or the next.

Tags: Back Pain, Minimally Invasive Spine Institute