Areas of Practice
Complex Spine Surgery
Complex spine surgery often involves the correction of a spinal deformity, commonly called scoliosis. This typically requires fusion of multiple levels of the spine. Adults with scoliosis can have a spinal deformity in the lumbar spine that affects the ability to stand and walk. The role for surgery is to improve the patient’s spinal alignment so they can stand more naturally and, as a result, have fewer symptoms caused by the scoliosis.
In other patients, the cervical spine is the main problem, and surgery can be done to correct the spinal alignment problem in much the same way as in the lumbar spine.
Spine tumors require skill and care for safe resection. Tumors can involve the bone, such as when cancer from elsewhere in the body spreads to the bone, or a tumor can grow within the spinal canal or spinal cord itself. Sometimes these tumors can be removed without needing a spine fusion, but in other cases fusion is required to reconstruct the bony spine that has been destroyed by tumor.
Degenerative Spine Disease
Degenerative disc disease can affect any level of the spine, but the cervical and lumbar regions are most commonly affected. Lumbar disc herniation and lumbar stenosis can cause pinched nerves. The symptoms caused by these pinched nerves are called radiculopathy or neurogenic claudication. When these symptoms fail to be treated by non-surgical methods, surgery can be done to relieve the compression on the nerves and help alleviate the symptoms.
Degeneration of discs in the cervical spine can cause compression on the spinal cord itself, which can require surgery to decompress the spinal cord. The purpose of this is to help patients be as functional as possible. Frequently a decompression surgery is accompanied with device placement to help stabilize the spine, either with a fusion procedure, or whenever possible, cervical disc arthroplasty (disc replacement) that maintains spine movement.
Trauma Neurosurgery
Patients with traumatic head injuries often require surgery to evacuate (remove) blood clots or relieve pressure for a swelling brain. These are serious injuries and require skilled intervention and careful management even after surgery, to give patients the best possible chance for recovery.
Spinal fractures are common as well. At times these can be managed in a brace and may not require surgery. In other cases surgery may be required to stabilize a severe spinal fracture or to relieve pressure on the spinal cord if the fracture is causing spinal cord compression.