Degenerative Spinal Stenosis and Ipsi-Contralateral Decompression: Presentation of a Surgical Technique and Clinical Cases

TL;DR

This paper introduces a minimally invasive surgical technique for treating lumbar spinal stenosis, offering benefits like reduced trauma and faster recovery.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel minimally invasive surgical approach for degenerative lumbar stenosis with clinical case examples.

Findings

Minimally invasive techniques offer comparable decompression results to traditional laminectomy with fewer complications.

The presented surgical method preserves spinal stability while reducing tissue trauma and recovery time.

Clinical cases demonstrate successful application of the minimally invasive approach in treating lumbar stenosis.

Abstract

Lumbar spinal stenosis is a widespread condition that significantly affects the quality of life in elderly individuals. Conservative therapy has a positive effect on patients whose primary symptom is pain. However, in severe cases with the presence of hypesthesia and paresis, surgical treatment comes into consideration. The aim of surgery is to decompress the neurovascular elements compressed by the narrowed spinal canal while preserving spinal stability. Conventional laminectomy, with or without fusion, has been considered effective for the treatment of this pathology, but its drawbacks are significant, including tissue trauma, secondary instability, and a substantial percentage of reoperations due to complications. In recent years, various minimally invasive spine surgery techniques have emerged, showing comparable results to laminectomy decompression in terms of relieving symptomatic spinal stenosis. Additionally, these techniques offer significant benefits such as minimal tissue trauma, reduced complication rates, and shorter operative time and recovery periods. Given the continuous development and improvement, minimally invasive surgery is expected to widely replace traditional open surgery for the treatment of lumbar stenosis in the future.

In this article, we present our experience in the surgical treatment of patients with degenerative lumbar stenosis, detailing the technique of the minimally invasive procedure we utilize and highlighting some of the clinical cases in which it has been applied.

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