What is What is Spine Surgery? – Spine Surgery is a procedure in which the surgeon intervenes into a spine to either decompress the compressed nerves or to resect a tumor or to correct a spinal fracture.
Spinal surgeries that are done to decompress the nerves involve taking out the ailing discs and replacing them with artificial devices such as spacers or an artificial disc.
These spine surgeries are called decompression and instrumentation or decompression with fixation.
In minimally invasive or endoscopic spine surgeries, A surgeon has a choice to either intervene using a posterior route or through a transforaminal route. Depending upon the route taken the surgery can be calledย TLIFย (Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion) orย PLIFย (Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion).
The surgery done to correct the spinal fractures is also known as Kyphoplasty.
Spine surgery is also used as a process to remove tumours from the spine. These tumors may be known as meningocele or spinal meningiomas.
Why is Spine Surgery Required? -The spine surgery is needed when someone is facing spinal canal stenosis or nerve compression in the spine. The nerve compression may happen due to disc bulges or disc protrusions that is when the disc comes out of its original place between the vertebrae and starts to push against the nerves passing through the spinal cord.
Spine Surgery is also required when a person faces a fracture in spine due to a trauma such as a fall or road traffic accident.
Who does Spine Surgery? -The spine surgery is done by experts who are well trained and well experienced in doing the spine surgery. These days many neurosurgeons given their expertise on nerves choose to do spine surgery. Thus the doctor offering spine surgery may be exclusively trained on spine surgery or may be orthopedic surgeons who further train on spine surgery or neurosurgeons who choose to do spine surgeries.
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