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Jul 10, 2008 11:05 pm US/Central
Oh My Aching Back! New Surgeries To Relieve Pain
(WCCO)
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The minimally invasive approach means a shorter hospital stay, quicker recovery, no blood loss and less exposure to radiation.
CBS
Eighty percent of adults suffer back pain at some point in their lives, 60 percent of them are hurt badly enough to miss work and virtually everyone wants relief.
But medicine is finding faster, safer and longer lasting ways to ease the aches and some of the breakthroughs are coming from Minnesota companies.
To look at Bill Zieminski taking a stroll, it's hard to believe he'd had major back surgery just four weeks before. It's even hard for him to believe it.
"My legs were numb. Couldn't get out of bed. Yeah, depression. Just some really -- it was tough stuff," said Zieminski.
A construction accident a few years ago triggered the start of degeneration in two of the discs in Zieminski's lower back. Without their cushioning support of discs, nerves became pinched and pain became intolerable.
Helping to give Zieminski his life back is an extra set of high-tech eyes, called the O-Arm, which allows surgeon Kevin Stevenson to do the entire operation through small slits.
"With that technology, even though I don't physically see his spine, it's actually more precise than if we had made a big incision and I were looking at it. It sort of gives you x-ray vision," said Stevenson.
Special stealth cameras above the operating table track reflective targeting balls on a fixed probe and feed the information into a computer to provide perfect alignment with a high-tech scan of the spine.
"Stealth recognizes this probe in relation to this probe. And the images we capture are sort of triangulated to that," said one surgeon.
The minimally invasive approach means a shorter hospital stay, quicker recovery, no blood loss and less exposure to radiation.
To replace the discs and fuse the vertebrae solidly together, rods of a space age material and spacers which encourage Zieminski's own bone to grow and become the final glue.
"He had me walking the next day. It's incredible," said Zieminski.
In less severe cases, it's possible to save the disc and ease the pain of a pinched nerve.
"The procedure that's done is what's called a micro-discectomy. Basically removing the fragment of disc that's herniated or pinching the nerve, freeing that nerve up," said Orthopedic Surgeon John Sherman.
Most of the time that cut in the disc covering, called the annulus, is just left open. But Dr. Sherman said that greatly increases the change of reherniation. In fact, a Stanford study found the rate is as high as 25 percent.
Minnetonka-based company Anulex has a device, called X-close, to vastly reduce that risk. Company animation shows how it allows the doctor to reach into the small incision and attach two tension bands, like stitches.
Early studies show X-close reduces the reherniation rate to less than 1 percent. Sherman said it's brilliant in its design and amazingly simple.
Patient Brad Meyer likes the fact that his back pain is gone, and he does not worry about his back slowing him down.
"I wanna keep doing the things that I like to do. I was glad to hear Dr. Sherman tell me I could play golf in about four months, which I did to the date," said Meyer.
Both surgeons said that physical therapy and back strengthening exercises will do the trick the vast majority of the time. Your doctor can help you get started feeling better.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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