Perioperative and short-term advantages of mini-open approach for lumbar spinal fusion

It has been widely reported a vascular and neurologic damage of the lumbar muscles produced in the classic posterior approach for lumbar spinal fusions. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate a better clinical and functional outcome in the postoperative and short term in patients undergoing minimal invasive surgery (“mini-open”) for this lumbar spinal arthrodesis. We designed a prospective study with a 30 individuals cohort randomized in two groups, depending on the approach performed to get a instrumented lumbar circumferential arthrodesis: “classic posterior” (CL group) or “mini-open” approach (MO group). Several clinical and functional parameters were assessed, including blood loss, postoperative pain, analgesic requirements and daily life activities during hospital stay and at the 3-month follow-up. Patients of the “mini-open approach” group had a significant lower blood loss and hospital stay during admission. They also had significant lower analgesic requirements and faster recovery of daily life activities (specially moderate efforts) when compared to the patients of the “classic posterior approach” group. No significant differences were found between two groups in surgery timing, X-rays exposure or sciatic postoperative pain. This study, inline with previous investigations, reinforces the concept of minimizing the muscular lumbar damage with a mini-open approach for a faster and better recovery of patients’ disability in the short term. Further investigations are necessary to confirm these findings in the long term, and to verify the achievement of a stable lumbar spinal fusion.