Minimally Invasive Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery in India

Minimally Invasive Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery

Healthcare in India has come of age with the most sophisticated and advanced technology available at few of the best hospitals in India offering world class services. More than the affordable prices, the quality of care and the skill of Indian surgeons is what brings medical tourists to India.

One of the very popular procedures among medical tourists in India is Minimally Invasive Lumbar Fusion spine surgery.

The lumbar spine is the most common area of pain, often known as low backache, and it accounts for second most common reason for visiting a physician after common cold. More than 90% of the patients with low backache improve within six week of conservative treatments like medication, physical therapy or injections. It is the spine surgeon who can decide whether or not you fall in the rest 10% and how beneficial it would be for you to undergo the surgery.

What is lumbar spinal fusion?

The objective of the spine fusion surgery is to alleviate the pain that is believed to originate from a motion segment in the spine. Lumbar fusion causes the bones of the spine to grow together or fuse so that there is no motion between the two vertebrae. The removal of intervertebral disc and bone spurs reduce pressure on the spinal nerves, thereby reducing the pain.

Herniated Lumbar Disc

For some patients, it may be recommended to have a spine fusion surgery performed in both the front and back of the spine in an effort to provide extra stability for the painful motion segment.

There are various techniques of doing a lumbar fusion surgery- posterior approach (incision in the back), anterior approach (incision in the abdomen) or both. There is the newer technique of minimally invasive surgery. The choice of which technique is best for you is dependent on the condition of the spine and your surgeon’s experience. However, the goal and result of all the techniques remain the same- to achieve a lumbar fusion and lessen the pain.

Minimally invasive technique for lumbar fusion is a relatively new technique but is quite popular among surgeons and patients both owing to the advantages it offers.

The major advantage is less damage to the surrounding tissue. In an open spinal surgery, the surgeon has to cut through the muscles to operate on the spine. This causes a lot of pain to the patient after the surgery and lengthens the recovery time, which is not the case with minimally invasive spine surgery, resulting in much less pain and faster recovery.

Another benefit is lesser blood loss through minimally invasive technique and thus no need for blood transfusions. The other benefits of course are shorter hospital stay, fast recovery and thus early resuming work.

Extreme lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (XLIF)

One of these MIS techniques is a procedure called Extreme- lateral lumbar interbody fusion (XLIF). The procedure involves approaching the lumbar spine from the side through a small incision. The surgery is performed through the muscle that lays next to the lumbar spine- the psoas muscle.

The advantage of XLIF or extreme- lateral lumbar interbody fusion is that 2/3 of the disc can be safely removed. An artificial graft is placed in between the vertebrae after the disc is removed to allow the bones to fuse together.

The other advantage is short surgery and quick recovery. For single level XLIF, the procedure is usually performed in an hour. The hospitalization is only for a day and braces are not required after the surgery. Some patients feel little weakness while lifting the leg due to psoas muscle weakness, which returns to normal fairly soon after the surgery.

Minimally invasive spine surgery is routinely done in India at IndiCure’s associate best spine surgery hospitals in India. These spinal surgeons are among the best spine surgeons in India. Not only you get the best services, the cost of minimally invasive lumbar fusion spine surgery in India is much less as compared to the cost of same spinal surgery in USA, UK or any other western country.

For more information on minimally invasive surgery, call / WhatsApp us at +91 9320036777 or write to us at info@indicure.com