Anthony Yeung, MD, and his partners at Phoenix-based Desert Institute for Spine Care Christopher Yeung, MD, Nima Salari, MD, and Justin Field, MD, penned an article for the Journal of Spine examining endoscopic spine surgery as a multidisciplinary subspecialty.
Currently, both surgeons and non-surgeons are performing endoscopic spine surgery with a variety of spine endoscopes, and the instrumentation used for the procedure is evolving. Surgeons and appropriately trained, certified non-surgeons use the endoscopic technique to perform reproducible minimally invasive spine surgeries that are more cost-effective than traditional spine surgery.
Endoscopic spine surgery is performed under fluoroscopic guidance for an easy and safe procedure. The Albuquerque-based University of New Mexico established a multidisciplinary team to perform and instruct in endoscopic spine surgery through a donation from Dr. Yeung. Asian countries — especially China and Korea, have adopted endoscopic spine surgery more quickly than the U.S. — focused on the transforaminal and translaminar endoscopic approaches.
"Endoscopic spine surgery has great promise in countries looking for cost effective delivery of healthcare to its population," concluded the study authors. "Endoscopic surgery is the least minimally invasive surgical platform that will facilitate a move away from fusion as a first line of surgical treatment, delaying or eliminating fusion for patients who may have indications for decompression and fusion, but do well with an earlier and staged procedure that will mitigate the need for open decompression and fusion by 75 percent, derived by large individual and group databases known to this author."
Dr. Yeung pioneered the "inside out" endoscopic spine surgery with the Yeung Endoscopic Spine System, a transforaminal technique. Spine care may become a joint effort in the future and endoscopic spine surgery could lower overall healthcare costs by removing duplication and unnecessary treatment while promoting a safe and effective solution for patients.