New Advancements in Spinal Fusion Back Surgery

For a long time, back surgeries have been saving many patients from the trauma and grief associated with back pain. Back pain is a very common ailment and occurs due to a variety of reasons including old age, stress on the back due to standing for a long time or due to working with very heavy loads. In most cases of back pain, back surgery might not be required.

These might be solved due to rest, mild exercises or other alternative medicines like yoga. In cases where the treatments do not afford any relief from the pain, back surgery is the preferred choice. Fusion back surgery or spinal fusion surgery is used to remove the damaged disc from the spine and thus reduce the pain.

First a surgery will be made to remove bone chips from the patient’s body – This is usually from the hips. Later the fusion back surgery is performed. Here the surgeon makes large incisions at the lower back of the patient that go down till the spine.

This allows the surgeon to have a good view of the spine as well as to have access for instruments during the fusion back surgery. The damaged disc is then removed and the bone graft taken during the earlier surgery is processed and packed in the place of the damaged disc.

The bone graft is expected to help the patients grow bones and fuse the vertebrae together. After this kind of fusion back surgery, the patient normally experiences good deal of pain from the graft area, which might continue even after the back pain has subsided.

New advancements are indeed helping the patients and surgeons by making the fusion back surgery simpler. First of these is the use of genetically produced proteins. These can be used in the place of bone grafts. These are available in power form.

During the fusion back surgery, these are sterilized in water and are packed in a cage and placed in the place between the two vertebrae. These proteins induce the patient’s bones to grow and thus fuse the vertebrae. Such a procedure completely eliminates the need for the first and painful surgery to remove the bone graft from the patient’s hips.

Another advancement is the use of minimally invasive procedures. Here an endoscope, which is a tiny tube with a video camera in its end, is used. During the fusion back surgery, the surgeon makes a small hole to insert the tube and dilates the required muscles to enable guiding the tube to the required places.

The video camera projects large scale pictures of the spine and the affected area thus helping the surgeon during the fusion back surgery. Use of laser for a lot of procedures has also drastically reduced the pain and the time involved in the back surgeries and thus help reducing the pain and the period of the recovery.

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