Stanley Hoang, MD, performed the world’s first awake spinal fusion using a dual approach, KSLA reported Dec. 10.
Dr. Hoang, who also performed LSU Health Shreveport’s (La.) first awake spinal discectomy, used a combination of lateral and posterior techniques. He was able to trim surgical time in half.
Awake surgery was chosen for the patient because they weren’t a suitable candidate for general anesthesia, the report said.
“This surgery is five years in the making,” Dr. Hoang said in the report. “We try to perfect each stage of the procedure separately and then we combine them together. Someone first started doing the second surgery on the side and two stages like what most people do. So I do from the side and then I have them lay on their back and do back part; that takes six hours. But then I switched to doing them on position where they lay on their belly only. I perfected that technique after a couple years and the second part, I was doing was an awake surgery, so I started doing smaller surgery awake first. And then I perfected that part of the procedure, so two different innovations after I perfected each part. I combine them together at this stage.
