Rambam Health Care Campus is the first Israeli hospital to introduce the method, called anterior-to-psoas which is less invasive than the traditional version of the operation which involves opening up the back.
The innovative procedure has also been used in the US, Australia and some other countries, but only in a small number of institutions.
Doctors take advantage of the anatomical corridor running from the waist to the back by inserting a tube into the waist, through which they can operate.
They then perform the spinal fusion which connects two or more vertebrae in the spine to reduce pain, correct a deformity or improve stability.
Dr Shai Menachem performed the operation on an 80-year-old woman with degenerative scoliosis at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, with his colleague Dr Ory Keynan.
Dr Menachem was performing the operation for the first time in Israel, but he had carried it out multiple times in Sydney, Australia, where he recently spent a stint working and mastering the technique.
In an interview with The Times of Israel, he said: “It allows us to perform spinal fusions through a small incision in the waist, and as a result achieve faster and easier recovery from the surgery compared to the common technique.
“The surgery was performed by making a small side-front incision in the abdominal wall. With the help of medical equipment designated for this surgical approach, specially imported from Australia, the patient’s degenerative scoliosis — curvature of the spine — was repaired, and the stressed nerves that caused pain along the leg were released.”
Dr Menachem added he expects to start using the procedure widely.
