Study Finds Endoscopic Spinal Surgery Early Discharge
New Jersey-based Executive Spine Surgery alerts spine surgery patients to a recent academic study that showed patients treated with endoscopic spine surgery were discharged quicker then after open traditional spine surgery or minimally invasive microscopic spine surgery.
Back pain suffers who need spine surgery now have evidence that patients who undergo endoscopic spine surgery have quicker recovery and discharge home, say physicians at West Orange-based Executive Spine Surgery. They point to a recently presented academic study that showed patients treated with endoscopic discectomy recovered and were discharged home 94% earlier then open surgery.
Presented at International Society of Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS) meeting in Vancouver, BC on April 3, 2013, the study led by the University of Columbia’s Reginald Knight, MD examined the results of almost 300 lumbar decompression patients from Prospective Spine Registry at Bassett Healthcare, a rural multispecialty employed physician-hospital.
Drs. Knight and Spivak and their colleagues used the database to review 283 consecutive elective lumbar degenerative spine cases from years 2010 to 2012, looking at outcomes after traditional-open surgery, minimally invasive tubular microscopic surgery and endoscopic surgery.
The results: All three treatment groups showed remarkable improvements in back pain, leg pain and disabilities scores over the course of the study, but there was significant differences in the length of stay after these surgeries. Patients who underwent open-traditional surgery, minimally invasive surgery and endoscopic surgery had average stays of 1.8, 1.0 and 0.1 days respectively.
“This study emphasizes that endoscopic spine surgery is extremely minimally invasive even for minimally invasive surgery. The exact reason for early discharge is unknown, it is likely due to less tissue damage and pain from the surgery” comments Dr. Carl Spivak. “This is why I make every effort to provide the least invasive, cutting-edge surgical techniques available.”