Transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion — alternative to open back fusion

Patients who suffer from a spine condition in the lumbar (lower back region) often experience chronic pain and limited mobility. This pain may worsen with sudden movement, bending or twisting. For most patients with lumbar pain, conservative pain treatments have not yielded any lasting results. You might feel that your only option to finding relief is traditional open back fusion to help stabilize your lumbar spine.

At USA Spine Care, we offer an alternative to traditional open back fusion. Our minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) provides a less invasive solution for your chronic lumbar pain. During our procedure, your surrounding muscles and tissue are not disrupted, which means you have a shorter recovery time^{^} than those who undergo traditional open back fusion.

As you continue to research our minimally invasive TLIF surgery, we encourage you to reach out to us with questions.

What is our minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF)?

The purpose of our minimally invasive TLIF procedure is to provide relief from chronic back pain in the lumbar region of the spine without disrupting the surrounding muscles and nerves during the surgery. For this reason, our TLIF procedure allows our surgeons to take an alternative approach to the surgery by making a small incision in the side, contrary to traditional open back fusions.

Specifically, our TLIF procedure is used to correct a diseased disc that is impacting a surrounding nerve and making the spine unstable by not providing support to the vertebrae above and below the disc. During the procedure, the surgeon will remove the damaged disc and decompress the affected nerve. Once the diseased disc is removed, the surgeon will insert a bone graft and spacer into the disc space to provide immediate stabilization of the spine.

Throughout the procedure, the surrounding muscles and blood vessels are spared, resulting in a shorter recovery time.^{^} The surgery is performed in our outpatient surgery facility so you can avoid overnight hospitalization.

Conditions treated by our minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF)

This procedure is specially designed to treat the chronic effects of some of the most common spine conditions, including:

• Degenerative disc disease
• Herniated disc
• Spondylolisthesis

If you have been diagnosed with any of these conditions, and you would like to explore treatment options outside of traditional open back fusion, please call our Patient Empowerment Consultants to ask more about our transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion procedure.

Common symptoms treated by our minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF)

Symptoms of spine conditions in the lumbar region can vary depending on the individual and the severity of the spine condition. The most common symptoms treated by our TLIF surgery are:

• Radiating numbness
• Radiating tingling
• Radiating pain
• Localized pain
• Burning sensations
• Trouble walking or standing for long periods of time
• Trouble sleeping comfortably