One of the time-consuming aspects of any surgery is the time spent in recovery. Traditional spine surgery often included long, deep incisions to expose the region in the spine where your practitioner performed the work. Surgeons in decades past relied on these large incisions to see the spine components to complete the necessary work.
Large incisions mean damage to healthy tissue. Muscles take time to heal and recover, often longer than the structures that were the object of the surgery. In addition, large incisions raise your risk of infection since any incision is a direct route to the inside of your body.
Sanjay Khurana, MD, chooses minimally invasive microsurgical techniques whenever possible. It’s one of Dr. Khurana’s areas of specialty since the start of his medical career. Minimizing the impact of surgery on healthy tissue and speeding the recovery process are factors this surgical approach adds to your successful procedure.
The key to any minimally invasive procedure is to limit the use of incisions in the body. When working with the sinuses, for example, a surgeon may use the nostrils for access rather than cutting through the skin of the face.
With spinal surgery, no natural opening in the body provides access to the spine structures. In this case, Dr. Khurana uses techniques and approaches that rely on tiny incisions in the skin to get to the spine.
When it’s possible to push muscle tissue out of the way rather than cut through, surgery simplifies, and recovery time decreases. The tubular retractor provides a way to dilate an opening through muscle to access cameras and tools through a small skin incision.
Surgical stabilization is part of some procedures, using rods and screws to hold bones of the spine in place while they heal. These can be placed percutaneously -- through the skin – through minimally sized incisions.
Depending on the condition requiring surgery, there are ways to approach the spine that aren’t directly through the back. Some lumbar spine conditions can get access from the side of your body, where muscle cover is limited compared with the back. Dr. Khurana can then use a tubular retractor to access the sides of vertebrae, often the preferred position for some types of work.
Thoracoscopic approaches enter through the chest with a series of small incisions to support cameras and tools. Traditionally, thoracic access meant large incisions and possible rib removal.
With incisions of about half an inch or less, surgical scars and bleeding are easy to control. Additional advantages of minimally invasive techniques include the following:
While not every spinal procedure works with minimally invasive microsurgery, it’s a technology still developing and growing more versatile.
Find out more in consultation with Dr. Khurana. You can book an appointment with our Manhattan Beach or Marina Del Rey office by phone or online. Schedule your visit today.
