Live Webcast of Innovative Spinal Surgery

Description: A new surgical approach is helping patients with ruptured discs to get back in action with less discomfort along the way. The innovative technique, Minimally Invasive Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (PLIF), relieves pressure on the nerve and resulting pain associated with a ruptured disc. Charles L. Branch Jr., M.D., Professor and Chair of Neurosurgery, at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, who helped adapt the minimally invasive technique which allows surgeons to operate through a one inch incision, will perform the procedure in a live webcast on October 7 at 5:00 pm EDT. During the webcast, he will prop open a normal width space between the vertebrae, remove extraneous bone adjacent to the disc, remove the ruptured disc material, and pack the space with the patient's own morselized bone, which will solidify and fuse the vertebrae overtime.