Achi news desk-
Dave Myen didn’t think much of being the first patient in Canada to receive robot-assisted direct lateral spine surgery two months ago. He was looking for anything to ease the pain.
Now he says he feels grateful that the robot enabled minimally invasive surgery and reduced recovery time.
“When I woke up from the operation, the sciatica was gone. It’s amazing.”
He has about four months to go until the fusion of the affected vertebrae is considered complete, but he says everything is going well.
Myen suffered from chronic back pain which led to sciatica in his right leg and extreme pain in his lower back, affecting his daily life “to the point that the shooting pain in my right leg caused me to stumble and fell.”
Dave Myen, left, and Dr Victor Yang, right.
supplied by LHSC
After several visits to his family doctor, chiropractors and massage therapists, he ended up at the London Health Sciences Center in London, Ont., as the first patient in the country to undergo the treatment with the Mazor X Spinal Robot.
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Although robotics has been used in spine surgeries in Canada before, LHSC said this is the first time it has been used in direct lateral surgery, which essentially combines two surgeries into one.
“Normally when we perform back surgeries we put the patient on the operating table when they are facing down,” explained Dr. Victor Yang, a neurosurgeon at LHSC.
“In Dave’s scenario, he also needed an operation from the side of the spine as well…In the old days, we would do this operation in two stages. And sometimes they (were) even spread over different days. And even if we can do it on the same day, we will still have to move the patient between two sites. And that means the patient will be under anesthetic for a longer time. “
The robot allowed Yang and the rest of the team to perform two surgeries in one, in a minimally invasive way. The robot allows the team to “more or less” see where the patient’s bone is and then guide them in the right direction. Because it was minimally invasive, it also sped up recovery time, meaning Myen was discharged from hospital in just a few days.
Dr. Yang stands behind the Mazor X robot.
supplied by LHSC
Robotic surgery is not as simple as buying a robot and ordering surgeries. In this case, the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University funded the original cost of the robot for research purposes before it was fully approved by Health Canada. Yang said they spent over a year studying the robot, learning how to use it and training the team. The Mazor X received Health Canada approval in July 2021 and the technology was transferred to LHSC for clinical use.
“Having a robotic surgery program takes a whole village, it’s not one person’s job,” he said. “We have Dr. (Marcelo) Oppermann, who is my clinical fellow, and also all of our operating room nurses, and they were trained over several sessions… the neuro-radiologist, as well as the neuro-anaesthetist and the vascular surgeons, stone they are (also) part of our team to ensure that this new technology is available to our patients.”
Since then the clinical neuroscience team has successfully performed five minimally invasive surgical spinal procedures with the robot.
Yang believes its use will become more and more common in spine surgery, where robotics is not yet as well established as it is in other surgeries, as it provides “more consistency and, in general, better outcomes and care.”
Meanwhile, Myen is excited about the possibilities the surgery has given him.
“I’m excited to get back to my everyday life and some of the things I enjoy and also have a summer that isn’t full of pain, but rather freedom to do the things I want.”
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
