Researchers compared outcomes in two groups of patients surgically treated with lumbar fusion for degenerative spine disease. One group had undergone minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and the other open surgery. The researchers found that MIS procedures were associated with significantly greater odds of patient satisfaction 3 months postoperatively but not 12 months postoperatively. MIS was also associated with less disability and pain at both time points. For more details, see the article “Minimally invasive versus open lumbar spinal fusion: a matched study investigating patient-reported and surgical outcomes” by James Mooney, MD, and colleagues, published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine (https://thejns.org/doi/10.3171/2021.10.SPINE211128).
The minimally invasive approach to surgery is quite popular. That’s no surprise: compared to open surgeries in general, minimally invasive surgical approaches produce less physical damage to the patient, result in fewer complications and less postoperative pain, and tend to save patients from prolonged stays in the hospital.
Given the popularity of MIS, it is best to have large-scale studies confirm or deny its benefits over open surgery. This is what the present study set out to do for lumbar spine surgery. Fourteen researchers from ten medical centers investigated data from the Quality Outcomes Database (QOD) on patients who had undergone elective lumbar fusion for degenerative spine disease. The lumbar surgery module of the QOD is the largest of its kind in the United States. Both subjective (patient-reported) and objective outcomes in patients who underwent MIS or open surgery for lumbar fusion were examined and analyzed.
