gms | German Medical Science

66th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)
Friendship Meeting with the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch)

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

7 - 10 June 2015, Karlsruhe

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XLIF with stand-alone cage for treatment of L4-L5 discopathy associated with L5 sacralization

Meeting Abstract

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  • Fulvio Tartara - Reparto di Neurochirurgia, Istituti Spitalieri di Cremona
  • Marco Bozzaro - SCDU Neurochirurgia. Ospedale San Giovanni Battista di Torino
  • Federico Pecoraro - SCDU Neurochirurgia. Ospedale San Giovanni Battista di Torino
  • Diego Garbossa - SCDU Neurochirurgia. Ospedale San Giovanni Battista di Torino
  • Alessandro Ducati - SCDU Neurochirurgia. Ospedale San Giovanni Battista di Torino

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 66. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC). Karlsruhe, 07.-10.06.2015. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2015. DocMO.12.05

doi: 10.3205/15dgnc056, urn:nbn:de:0183-15dgnc0565

Published: June 2, 2015

© 2015 Tartara et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objective: The L4-L5 disc disease associated with a defect of differentiation L5 (sacralization) is a common degenerative disease. Some interesting pathophysiological considerations can be made about this situation. In fact, probably the disc disease comes from an increased stress on the disc L4-L5 which is iperlordotic for compensation of L5-S1 hypolordosis related to disc hypoplasia.

Method: We report a series of 8 cases treated with an XLIF stand-alone cage.

Results: Only one case has persistent pain without radiological signs of failure.

Conclusions: The appropriate size of the cage seems to be the key element in conjunction with absolute respect of the integrity of the vertebral endplates. The cage must be large enough to allow an adequate tension band of the longitudinal ligaments. The fundamental limitation on the feasibility of this approach is represented by the relationship between the iliac wing and the L4-L5 discal space. The results seem stable over time although a longer follow-up will be necessary.