Richard Kaul
The Spine Africa Project, USA
Title: A five year study of the outcomes of a novel percutaneous fluroscopically guided lumbar instrumented interbody fusion for the treatment of back/leg pain
Biography
Biography: Richard Kaul
Abstract
The evolution of the understanding of pain producing spine pathology in conjunction with the development of improved video-endoscopic instruments and technology are some of the foundational factors that allowed the innovation of outpatient surgical technique. The first outpatient lumbar inter-body fusion was successfully performed in 2005 in New Jersey and forever shifted the paradigm of spine surgery demonstrating the fact that lumbar fusion surgery could safely and effectively performed in the ambulatory surgical setting. The presentation entitled ‘Minimally invasive multi-level fusions in the ASC’ describes the five year experience of a single practitioner in two clinical facilities in NJ, USA. The surgical outcomes of a total of approximately eighty patients were reviewed and analyzed in this retrospective study which used the post evaluation tools of the Qswestry and VAS scales to gauge clinical outcome with CT to assess the degree of bony fusion. The complication rate is presented and demonstrated to be significantly lower when compared to the same operation performed using the wide open approach of traditional spine surgery. In addition the presentation describes the various technologies that have been employed in the emerging field of minimally invasive spine surgery ranging from the instruments of endoscopic discectomy to instrumented fusion. The effective management of pain requires a multi-disciplinary and multi-modality approach, of which the fluoroscopically guided minimally invasive technique is an essential tool that the modern interventional pain physician should possess, and which if preceded by a comprehensive diagnostic plan, will lead to improved patient outcomes.