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History and Rationale for the Minimally Invasive Lateral Approach

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Lateral Access Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

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Abstract

The minimally invasive lateral approach, since its first technical report [1], has been shown to be a less invasive alternative to access the anterior column of the thoracolumbar spine, providing direct visualization of the spinal structures while reducing adjacent vascular, sympathetic, and visceral trauma associated with open anterior approaches. In addition, less blood loss, less postoperative pain, shorter hospital stay, and faster return to daily activities are associated with this technique [2–5]. The lateral approach has been utilized in an increasingly number of surgical indications. It was first described to treat low back pain associated with degenerative disc disease above L5 level, avoiding patients with severe central canal stenosis [6]. Over the years, indications were extrapolated, showing that indirect decompression of the neural structures can be achieved by disc height restoration [7], and ligamentotaxis can derotate the vertebral body, providing coronal alignment [8–12]. Other published indications, with or without posterior supplementation, are adjacent level disease, pseudoarthrosis, trauma, infection, sagittal alignment, spondylolisthesis revision surgeries, and total disc replacement [13–25]. The scientific evidence has been growing and being highlighted in high-impact publications in the literature, showing its advantages, efficacy, and safety related to this technique. These advances make surgeons responsible for learning and using these new techniques and technologies in order to provide their patients better clinical and radiological results with less complications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Patologia da Coluna (IPC), São Paulo, Brazil

    Luiz Pimenta, Luis Marchi, Leonardo Oliveira, Fernanda Fortti, Etevaldo Coutinho, Rubens Jensen & Rodrigo Amaral

  2. University of California, San Diego, Brazil

    Luiz Pimenta

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  1. Luiz Pimenta
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  7. Rodrigo Amaral
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Correspondence to Luiz Pimenta .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami Neurological Surgery, Miami, Florida, USA

    Michael Y. Wang

  2. Spine Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical Center Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, New York, USA

    Andrew A. Sama

  3. Dept. of Neurosurgery, University of South Florida Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, Florida, USA

    Juan S. Uribe

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Pimenta, L. et al. (2017). History and Rationale for the Minimally Invasive Lateral Approach. In: Wang, M., Sama, A., Uribe, J. (eds) Lateral Access Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28320-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28320-3_1

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