A new study published in Spine examines minimally invasive techniques and separation surgery for patients with metastatic spine disease.
The researchers examined studies in PubMed, Embase and CINAHL databases to compare research on MIS techniques or separation surgery. There were 29 articles that met inclusion criteria and 25 that discussed MIS techniques with the main objective of percutaneous stabilization, tubular retractors, mini-open approach and thoracoscopy/endoscopy. There were also four studies that reported separation surgery.
The researchers found:
1. The intraoperable variables, outcomes and complications were similar for both the traditional approaches and MIS approaches in the studies.
2. There were MIS studies showing those techniques had statistically significant improvement in outcomes.
3. The mini-open techniques reported in the literature had the strongest evidence for superiority.
4. The researchers concluded there was low evidence for MIS and separation surgery for treating metastatic spine disease.
5. The researchers suggest "the next iteration of research should include higher-quality studies with sufficient power, and will be able to provide higher level evidence on the outcomes of MIS approaches and separation surgery."