H. Michael Mayer – författare

Don’t miss it! The second, completely revised and expanded edition of the successful surgical manual on minimally invasive spine surgery includes 51 chapters (including more than 20 new chapters) covering all current minimally invasive techniques in spine surgery. A complete survey of all microsurgical and endoscopic techniques with a special focus on semi-invasive injection techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in low back pain is given. The clear chapter structure with terminology, history, surgical principles, advantages/disadvantages, indications, access principles, complications, and results facilitates navigation through the manual. Topics include the principles of microsurgical and endoscopic treatment, spinal navigation and computer-assisted surgery, minimally invasive reconstruction, fusion, dynamic stabilization in fractures, degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, low back pain and deformities. The didactic presentation of surgical steps makes the reader familiar with all types of new minimally invasive techniques in clinical use or still in ongoing clinical trials such as minimally invasive spine arthroplasty.

Low back pain is a very common problem that is increasingly being treated surgically. This book aims to evaluate carefully the possible surgical approaches to low back pain, with detailed appraisal of the factors leading to their success or failure. It begins by explaining the scientific basis for surgery and considering the different diagnostic techniques that may be employed, thereby elucidating the surgical rationale, indications, and contraindications. The value of conservative options is also assessed to help the reader weigh the need for surgery. The various surgical modalities, including the most recent, are then fully described and evaluated with the aid of numerous illustrations. The book concludes with a chapter devoted to evidence-based analysis of the outcome of surgery in patients with low back pain. This book will be invaluable to orthopaedic and neurosurgeons, rheumatologists, neurologists, and all who are concerned with the effective treatment of this often debilitating condition.

Joint replacement is a logical step in the treatment of severe joint pathologies with irreversible lesions resisting conservative therapy. At the spinal level, arthrodesis became, very early, the gold standard of treatment for severe intervertebral disc pathologies. The next logical step was to envision functional replacement, and this step was taken as early as 1956, when the first intervertebral implant was described. However, it took many more years and a great variety of proposed implant designs before clinical applications could be attempted.