Clinical and Radiological Outcome of Minimally Invasive- Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion in Patients with Single or Double-Level Involvement with Minimum 2-Year Follow-up

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this study is to analyze the clinical and radiological outcome of Minimally Invasive-Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (MIS-TLIF) in terms of estimated blood loss (EBL), operative time, length of stay (LOS) in the hospital, complication, Oswestry disability index (ODI) score, visual analog scale (VAS) score, and parameters of sagittal spinal balance before and after surgery. The parameters of sagittal spinal balance included in this study were pelvic Incidence (PI), lumbar lordosis, focal lordosis at the index level. Materials and Methods: All cases were retrospectively followed up. Single-level and double-level MIS-TLIF procedures for back pain and leg pain operated between 2015 and 2018 were included in the study. PI, Lumbar lordosis, Focal lordosis at index level was measured on preoperative, post-operative, and final follow-up lateral lumbosacral X-ray in the supine position. Demographic data, intraoperative blood loss, operative time, LOS, ODI score, and VAS score at different times were reviewed and analyzed. Results: Fifty-four patients were included among them 24 were male and 30 were female. The average age of the patients was 51.6 ± 12.1 years. Sixteen double-level surgery and 38 single-level surgeries. The average value of follow-up was found to be 39.6 ± 12.4 months. The average value of operative time, the EBL and the LOS were 170.8 ± 19.8 min, 132.1 ± 34.8 mL, and 4.8 ± 0.8 days, respectively. The average PI was 54.9 ± 11.2° preoperatively, 55.0 ± 10.7° postoperatively and 54.8 ± 10.9° at the final follow-up. Pre-operative lumbar lordosis and focal lordosis were 44.55 ± 12.9° and 7.76 ± 5.2°, respectively with postoperatively and final follow-up to 48.88 ± 13.1° and 10.62 ± 5.1°, respectively. VAS score and ODI scales were improved significantly from preoperative 8.4 ± 0.9 and 56.3 ± 4.9, respectively, to postoperatively and final follow-up 2.0 ± 0.8 and 21.6 ± 5.4, respectively. The postoperative complications and revision occurred in 8 (14.8%) and 4 (7.4%) patients, respectively. Conclusion: MIS-TLIF is a novel technique with the good radiological and clinical outcome with decreased perioperative morbidity. It is also superior to open TLIF in terms of EBL, hospital LOS, operative time, perioperative morbidity, and surgical complications. Keywords: Minimally invasive-transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion, Clinical improvement, Pelvic incidence, Lumbar lordosis, Focal lordosis