University of Southern California USC

Introduction:

Minimally invasive spine surgeries (MIS) are procedures that allows for treatment of various diseases through small incisions and targeted approaches to decrease muscle and soft tissue injuries.  MIS are often times performed with small tubular or minimal access retractors with the assistance of an endoscope or microscope.  MIS has been used in the spine since the early 1990’s for endoscopic discectomy, but the indications and techniques for MIS have dramatically expanded over the last decade.

The Benefit of MIS:

With smaller incisions and more targeted approaches in MIS, there is an overall decreased in soft tissue damage from surgery that can lead to quicker recovery.  Clinical studies have demonstrated that MIS decreases surgical blood loss, hospitalization time, overall recovery time, and time away from work.  In fact, many of the MIS procedures can now be performed on an outpatient basis.

Indications:

Traditionally, MIS is best suited for patients with focal degenerative spine diseases such as disc herniations, spinal stenosis, and spondylosis.  However, advances in technology and surgical techniques have led to wide expansion of surgical indications for MIS in the treatment of spinal diseases.  MIS techniques can be applied for treatment of a wide spectrum of spinal disorders from the skull base to the sacrum.  Many of the complex spinal disorders that were once only treatable with open spine surgeries can now be treated with MIS.  They include spine trauma, osteoporotic fracture, spine tumors, and spinal deformities.

Our expertise:

At the USC Neurosurgery Spine Center, our goal is to provide the most advanced and cutting-edge minimally invasive treatments for patients with degenerative and complex spinal disorders.  We currently offer MIS microdisectomy, MIS spinal decompression, MIS interbody fusion, MIS posterior spinal fusion, and percutaneous spinal fusion for degenerative spine diseases.  We also offer endoscopic assisted procedures including endoscopic discectomy, endoscopic sympathectomy, and endoscopic laminectomy, endoscopic odontoidectomy, and endoscopic spinal fusion.  In addition, our specialists offer percutaneous treatments for osteoporotic fractures and metastatic spinal tumors.  For selected patients, complex reconstruction of the spine for spinal trauma, spinal deformity, and spinal tumors can be treated at USC Neurosurgery Spine Center through MIS and percutaneous approaches.  Finally, the radiosurgery program at USC Department of Neurological Surgery is widely recognized as a national leader in the field of radiosurgery, and we offer the most sophisticated radiosurgery capabilities for treatment of metastatic and primary spine tumors.  

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