Benefits Of Endoscopic Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

The future is now! Listen in as Dr. Haines explains the benefits of endoscopic minimally invasive spine surgery utilizing a tiny endoscope (camera). Patients suffering with neck pain or back pain can now regain their quality of life more quickly! Some of the benefits include:

• Smaller incisions
• Muscle spreading (vs cutting muscle)
• Less post-surgical discomfort
• Faster patient recovery

Spinal endoscopic surgery is an innovative type of ultra minimally invasive spinal surgery. This allows surgeons to access the spine through tiny cameras the size of this pen that previously we were not able to access. Through a tiny incision spine surgeons are able to spread muscle without cutting the muscle in order to access disc herniations in areas where the nerves are pressed. This enables us to take the pressure off the nerves, and restore people back to life without disrupting any muscle whatsoever. Spinal endoscopic surgery works by putting a tiny camera into small parts of the spine very safely, looking at it under a magnifying lens, and seeing the nerves, seeing the disc herniations, and taking the pressure off the nerves without removing significant bone or damaging any muscle whatsoever.

Spinal endoscopic surgery offers a huge advantage over traditional types of spine surgeries in many circumstances. During traditional spine surgeries, big muscle incisions with lots of muscle disruption and lots of bone removal are often times needed. While using an endoscope, we can do it without disrupting all that muscle, without removing all that bone. Ultimately, it means smaller incisions, less muscle cutting, less muscle back pain, faster recovery after surgery, and better long-term outcomes with surgery.

Once upon a time, endoscopic spinal surgery was only used for disc herniations. Well, times have changed! Now, at VSI, we did the world’s first combined robotic and endoscopic spinal procedure. The technology is rapidly growing and we’re now able to use a spinal endoscope doing more complex large procedures with less muscle disruption, less muscle damage, and ultimately faster, easier recovery for patients with surgery. Often times patients will see me with a recommendation of having a traditional type of  spinal surgery, well the reality is often times we can do these procedures with endoscopes. We can do them less invasively. If you have any questions, please contact us to see how we can help you.