What is minimally invasive to the spine tubular approach?

The minimally invasive spine to the tubular approach is a newly incorporated that provides great advantages for patients and for the hospital system in general procedure.

In short, this procedure involves making an incision very small skin that can be up to 1.5 cms. in length, depending on the condition that we will treat. Then a series of tubes are successively introduced, each larger than the previous one, to thereby leave a workspace building up to the spine. Once on it, and with the help of a surgical microscope, we can operate virtually almost all the most common spinal condition, including disc herniation and spinal stenosis.

This approach allows a bilateral decompression of the spine, entering from one side.

Advantages and disadvantages of tubular minimally invasive approach to the spine

This approach has a number of advantages over open column decompression step list:

• Skin incision much smaller 
• Infinitely less muscle damage, just because the opening is smaller, but alsoit is not necessary deinsertion bone muscle plane. 
• In the open approach muscle it is separated from its attachments to the periosteum, while the tubular approach, the tube all it does is to separate the muscle fibers and, when removed, the space created through muscle collapses completely.
• Less risk of infection 
• Less blood loss 
• Less postoperative pain 
• Earlier patient mobilization 
• Reduced hospital stay 

The drawbacks or disadvantages can be the following: 

• Greater exposure to ionizing radiation for the patient and surgeon 
• For major spinal deformities, the tubular minimally invasive approach may be limited

Risks tubular minimally invasive approach to the spine

The greatest risk we can take this approach is that the surgeon has not reached the optimal time to reach the learning curve of the procedure and are not comfortable in some stages of the approach, can make some failures. If the surgeon has acquired a good practice, the risks are minimal and even lower than those occurring in open decompression.

Recovering from a tubular minimally invasive approach to the spine

As a minimally invasive approach to the spine damage generated in the underlying skin tissue it is minimal, since all we open myofascial longitudinally separate the muscle fibers without periosteum desinsertarlas. This will result in an immediate postoperative the patient that can be raised when being operated, can walk and present minimal postoperative pain compared with open decompressive surgery.

A few hours after having surgery, the patient may be discharged and transferred to your home.

For more information, consult a specialist in neurosurgery .