Minimally invasive Surgery Xlif.. Help

[YB1125]

My Doctor wants to perform Minimally invasive Surgery using the Xlif Technique for my Lumbar scoliosis 45 degrees L1-L4. He said I am young and healthy and most likely a good outcome.
I know it is still new technique and maybe many of you did not hear about it yet, but anyone that does have experience.. I would love to hear, anything would help, any link, thoughts.. etc

Also, Any case studies out there comparing minimally invasive approach to the traditional open back approach?

Here is the link that describes the technique http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5nkVaduSSg

[jrnyc]

Dr Anand in LA is a big proponent of minimally invasive surgery for lumbar....
the procedure is not new for thoracic, but is newer for lumbar....
you can check out Dr Anand's website...he has a video of the procedure...without any blood or gore...
minimally invasive has been discussed on this forum before...
if you do a search, you will find the topic discussed on this forum...
there are several surgeons who use the procedure by now...

jess

[leahdragonfly]

can XLIF alone straighten a curve?

Hi there,

I just had XLIF's done at L2/3 and L3/4 along with a posterior revision for broken rods, so I can tell you all you want to know about what an XLIF is like.

However, first I am wondering if your doctor is proposing XLIF's alone, is he saying it will give any correction of your curve, or just fuse it in place? My understanding is that it would not be able to correct a curve at all as a stand-alone procedure. That would be important to know.

Let me know what other questions you have and I will gladly answer them.

[jrnyc]

there are different minimally invasive approaches...PLIF, AXILF, etc...
the minimal approach can be from the back, side, etc..
all you have to do is google it...
or any of the surgeons who use it....
Dr Lonner offered me "partial" minially invasive...and i need rods, plus discs repaired...

jess

[LindaRacine]

Gayle...

We've seen a lot of patients whose curve gets significantly better with just the XLIF, although it is usually followed by a PSF. I think there may be some surgeons doing standalone XLIFs.

--Lind

[jrnyc]

how can that be enough for patients with large curves....?

jess

[LindaRacine]

how can that be enough for patients with large curves....?

jess

Well, no one said it was possible for "large" curves.

If you look at Dr. Deviren's presentation from our Scoliosis Multidisciplinary conference last December:

http://orthosurg.ucsf.edu/sites/defa...ry_Deviren.pdf

Check out page 32 (titled eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion (XLIF). The X-ray on the left is prep, and the X-ray on the right is after XLIFs.

On page 45 of that presentation, you can see that the XLIF gave the patient a huge correction in the fractional curve at the very bottom of the spine.

[titaniumed]

Hard to believe that the perfect correction on the right x-ray is before hardware...this person had quite the release with her anterior. (xlif)

Of course, next comes the hardware.
Ed

[YB1125]

Thank you for the info..

Jess- Thank you, I have looked into Dr Anand before and spoke to his assistant, unfortunately he does not take my health Insurance.

leahdragonfly-

I just had XLIF's done at L2/3 and L3/4 along with a posterior revision for broken rods, so I can tell you all you want to know about what an XLIF is like. 

However, first I am wondering if your doctor is proposing XLIF's alone, is he saying it will give any correction of your curve, or just fuse it in place? My understanding is that it would not be able to correct a curve at all as a stand-alone procedure. That would be important to know.

Let me know what other questions you have and I will gladly answer them.

The Xlif was proposing also 2 shorter rods and 4 screws. Do you not have rods in your back?
and thank you, please tell me all about it.. Is the recovery really that fast? Do you have flexibility with your spine? any pain afterwards? ..etc

[YB1125]

LindaRacine-
Did you mean Xlif without rods? .. or just the material they put between the vertebrates to make it straight? Does it perform without rods?
Also when I clicked the link I could not find any info about eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion by Dr. Deviren.

[LindaRacine]

LindaRacine-
Did you mean Xlif without rods? .. or just the material they put between the vertebrates to make it straight? Does it perform without rods?
Also when I clicked the link I could not find any info about eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion by Dr. Deviren.

Not sure why you can't see the images I mentioned above. I'm able to click on the link, which opens the PDF. Then, I scroll down to the 32nd slide. The X-ray on the left is pre-op, and the x-ray on the right is post-op. You'll see that the patient had a lot of correction without rods and screws.

[jrnyc]

is that page 32 you are referring to?? or is there a slide number?
i see all of it...pretty large on my screen, actually...

are there requirements that rule people in or out of having this form
of scoli surgery? what is the largest size curve it can address...?

jess

[LindaRacine]

is that page 32 you are referring to?? or is there a slide number?
i see all of it...pretty large on my screen, actually...

are there requirements that rule people in or out of having this form
of scoli surgery? what is the largest size curve it can address...?

jess

As far as I can tell, there are no slide numbers on the actual slides. But, if you look at the header information in Acrobat or Preview, you can see that there are 69 slides. The title of the slide is eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion (XLIF). Not sure why I'm not able to describe this so people can find it.

I don't know which patients might get away with only an XLIF, but I'm guessing it's pretty unusual. You might be able to get a lot more information here:

http://www.thebetterwayback.org/

[jrnyc]

thanks Linda...for that link....
but when i looked for doctors affiliated with it, i found a lot of names i
never saw before...none i recognized when i searched for Manhattan...
i wonder what the "usual" well known surgeons think of it...
???

jess

[LindaRacine]

thanks Linda...for that link....
but when i looked for doctors affiliated with it, i found a lot of names i
never saw before...none i recognized when i searched for Manhattan...
i wonder what the "usual" well known surgeons think of it...
???

jess

As well as being used in scoliosis surgeries, the XLIF is also used for non-deformity surgeries, so it's no surprise that you don't recognize most of the names. As has been said many times before, surgeons have their own preference for implants and approach. I haven't looked, but I'm guessing that only one of the UCSF surgeons is listed on BetterWayBack, but there are at least 2-3 other surgeons who use the XLIF, but have not become members of SOLAS (probably just due to lack of time).