Lumbar spine surgery risks
For low back pain, some people prefer surgery directly, while others rely on mild conservative treatments. There is no right or wrong method, only whether it is suitable or not. Choosing an appropriate treatment method requires, in addition to objective and comprehensive assessment, the elimination of biases and the correction of some misunderstandings.
There are many clinical treatment methods at present, including conservative treatment, surgical treatment and minimally invasive treatment. For more serious cases, surgical treatment is the last option, but it is not necessarily the most effective method. Whether to have surgery or not should be considered based on the patient’s condition.
When lumbar spine disease develops into a condition that requires surgery, it must be very serious. Many of them are patients who have been diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis or lumbar disc herniation. After a period of conservative treatment, they are ineffective, but they are worried that the surgical effect will not be satisfactory. , and may also bring new sequelae. There are risks in any surgery. Which risks should doctors and patients pay more attention to? How high will the risk be? What is the probability of it happening?
Lumbar spine disease mainly affects the cauda equina nerve or nerve root. Central disc herniation mainly compresses the cauda equina nerve, while unilateral disc herniation compresses the nerve root on one side. The purpose of surgery is to relieve these compressive factors. Surgery to remove the tissue that compresses the nerve roots has the risk of damaging the nerves in the process. Nerve roots that have been compressed for a long time will deviate from their original positions, making them difficult to identify during surgery and prone to accidental injury. Some nerve roots may be damaged due to traction due to excessive compression when removing the pressure-causing object in front of them. The longer a patient’s disease lasts, the more difficult the surgery will be, and the greater the risk of nerve root damage during surgery.
Another relatively large postoperative risk in orthopedic surgery comes from the materials of steel nails and steel rods. Many patients use internal fixation for surgery. After discectomy, the most widely used method is to use a nail-rod system to fix the unstable vertebral body. As the bone implanted to replace the removed intervertebral disc grows, the new bone will wrap around the nail and rod system, which is called “fusion.” After fusion, the purpose of surgical reinforcement is achieved. If the bone growth rate is slow and the fusion of the new bone and the nail rod system is not ideal, the nail rod alone will undergo fatigue fracture after bearing weight for a long time, causing new problems. Patients with osteoporosis have a lower bone healing capacity, so they need to be cautious when choosing fusion surgery.
2024-03-11 20:29:52
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