Spinal surgery: Everything you should know

Spinal surgery: Everything you should know 

Spine surgery has evolved significantly in the last two to three decades. Surgery for spinal issues is much safer today because of emergence of new techniques and technological upgrades making it safer. The common spine surgeries are:  

1. Spinal decompression and/ or a discectomy  

2. Stabilization surgery / Spinal Fusion Surgery 

3. Minimal Invasive Spine Surgery  

4. A Spinal Deformity correction surgery 

A Decompression or a Discectomy is usually done to relieve compression in the spinal nerves/cord to relieve neural pain or other compression symptoms. Its limitation being the inability to address back pain or neck pain.  

A Spinal Fusion surgery is done to fuse an abnormal segment usually as an addition to the above procedure, to take care of the instability in the spinal segment. A normal spine has 23 motion segments. Fusing a level/ motion segment reduces mobility of the spine – depending upon the location/ level/ number of Fusion segments.  

Minimal invasive surgery is done through small tubes and endoscopes. It results in less pain and blood loss post operatively. However, it is not designed to address all types of problems. 

A deformity surgery is performed to correct an abnormal curvature or angulation of spine. It usually involves fixing a larger segment of spine to achieve proper correction. However, this may lead to more restriction of movement. Today, our advanced techniques make it possible to do Fusion free correction of spinal deformities.