A study recently published in Spine examines the quality of life for patients undergoing minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion for the first year after surgery.
Patients underwent the procedure at an outpatient spine clinic and were followed for an average of 47 months. The researchers found at 47 months after surgery:
• Visual analogue scale scores decreased postoperatively from 7.0 to 3.5.
• Oswestry Disability Index scores dropped postoperatively from 43.1 to 28.2.
• Short-Form 36 mental component scores increased from 43.8 to 49.7.
• Short-Form 36 physical component scores increased from 30.6 to 39.6.
"MITLIF resulted in a high rate of spinal fusion and very low rate of interbody fusion failure and/or adjacent segment disease requiring reoperation while reducing postoperative complications," the authors concluded.
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