Lumbar Surgery

                                                 

Lumbar surgery refers to any type of surgery in the lumbar spine, or lower back, between one and more of the L1-S1 levels.

There are two general types of lumbar spine surgery that comprise the most common surgical procedures for the lower back:

Lumbar Decompression

The goal of decompression surgery is usually to relieve pain caused by nerve root pinching. There are two common causes of lumbar nerve root pressure: from a lumbar disc which is herniated or stenosis of the lumbar spine.

This type of pain is usually referred to as a radiculopathy, or sciatica.

Decompression surgery involves removing a small a portion of the bone over the nerve root and/or disc material from under the nerve root to relieve pinching of the nerve and provide more room for the nerve to heal. The most common types of decompression surgery are microdiscectomy and laminectomy which was explained earlier

There are also a few alternatives available to the above two standard procedures, such as an X-STOP which is a possible option instead of a laminectomy for lumbar spinal stenosis.

Lumbar Fusion

The goal of a lumbar fusion is to stop the pain at a painful motion segment in the lower back. Most commonly, this type of surgery is performed for pain and disability caused by lumbar degenerative disc disease or spondylolisthesis.

Spinal fusion surgery involves using a bone graft to stop the motion at a painful vertebral segment, which in turn should decrease the pain generated from the joint. Spine surgery instrumentation (medical devices), bone graft procedures, and bone stimulators are sometimes used along with spinal fusion.

There are also many surgical approaches to performing spinal fusion, such as ALIF, PLIF, XLIF, TLIF, posterolateral gutter fusion, anterior/posterior fusion, and certain minimally invasive approaches.

In addition to the above conditions, decompression and/or spinal fusion may be performed to address other types of the lumbar spine pathologies, such as infection or tumors.

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