NoBlood

Minimally invasive back surgery has maximum results

For full article see link at Indystar.com at http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...511290341/1083

November 29, 2005

TOOLS OF TRADE: Dr. Stephan Lange displays a drill used to operate through a finger-sized hole in minimally invasive back surgery, which promises a faster recovery time.

Lange has been performing minimally invasive lumbar surgery for three years. He says that 97 percent of his patients in 2005 have gone home on the day of surgery -- far more than patients who undergo traditional surgery. Lange added that he's not sending patients packing to please insurance companies. "These patients are going home happy," he says.

About 800,000 back and neck surgeries are performed in the United States each year, according to Dr. Gunnar Andersson, professor and chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He says the number has roughly doubled in the past 10 to 15 years.

Dr. Darryl T. Gray, medical officer at the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, says population-based data suggest that the rates of outpatient lumbar spine surgery, which includes newer, less- invasive procedures as well as more traditional approaches, rose dramatically in the United States from the mid-1990s through 2000. Those numbers suggest that minimally invasive surgery and quicker, less-invasive forms of traditional surgery are on the rise.

For full article see link at Indystar.com http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...511290341/1083