Conditions and Services

Conditions Treated

The fellowship-trained specialists with UC Irvine Healthcare’s multidisciplinary Comprehensive Spine Program have expertise in diagnosing and treating all types of conditions affecting the spine, including:

Arthritis
Cervical and lumbar radiculopathy
Compression fractures
Disc degeneration
Disc herniation
Neck and low back pain
Scoliosis
Spinal cancer
Spinal cord disorders
Spinal cord injury
Spinal stenosis
Spine trauma
Spondylolisthesis
Spondylosis
Vascular spine disorders

Services

The program at UC Irvine Medical Center, Orange County’s only university hospital, brings together specialists in neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, neurology, physiatry, anesthesiology, pain medicine, physical medicine and other specialties to design the most effective treatment for each patient.

Nonsurgical Treatment Options

These specialists provide patients with access to a wide range of nonsurgical treatments and support services for spinal disorders, including drug therapy, spinal injections, therapeutic exercise and lifestyle changes.

Minimally Invasive Surgery

For patients who have unsuccessfully tried conservative methods to alleviate back or neck pain, minimally invasive surgical techniques are available to correct virtually any spinal disorder. Minimally invasive surgery, including robot-assisted spinal surgery, benefits patients by reducing hospitalization time, decreasing pain and facilitating a faster recovery. Microsurgical advances also minimize the impact of surgery on adjacent muscles and ligaments.

Among the many procedures performed by our spine specialists are:

Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion
Anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF)
Artificial disc replacement
Decompressive laminectomy
Extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF)
Kyphoplasty
Microdiscectomy
Posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF)
Scoliosis surgery
Spondylosthesis surgery
Tranforminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF)
Vertebroplasty
X-stop procedure

UC Irvine Healthcare currently offers cervical disc arthroplasty, a new surgical procedure to treat patients with cervical degenerative disc disease. Cervical disc arthroplasty has been shown to preserve motion, reduce recovery time and reduce reoperations – compared to traditional anterior cervical surgical techniques.

Robot-Assisted Spinal Surgery

UC Irvine Healthcare physicians performed the first robot-assisted minimally invasive spine surgery on the West Coast using SpineAssist®, an advanced robotic navigational tool.

SpineAssist is designed to guide the surgeon, with help from a robotic arm, in placing screw implants to stabilize the spine. A 2010 study in the journal Spine showed that the robotic guidance system can increase the accuracy of spinal implants by as much as 98.3 percent and significantly lower the rates of misplaced screws and subsequent neurological problems.

SpineAssist has two components:

A computerized work station that allows the surgeon to use images of a patient’s damaged spine to develop a three-dimensional surgical blueprint for the procedure;
A robotic arm positioned on the spine that guides the surgeon to predetermined points for optimal placement of the implants, particularly in minimally invasive procedures where there is a limited view of the surgical field.

SpineAssist, which can be used for traditional open surgeries, also lessens radiation exposure for the patient, surgeon and entire operating-room team. Traditionally, dozens of X-rays must be taken during a procedure to ensure that each screw is properly located and doesn’t impinge on nerves or breach the spinal canal. Since the robot is programmed based on scans taken before the operation, the physician can work more quickly, with greater accuracy and fewer X-ray fluoroscope images during the procedure.

To make an appointment to discuss robot-assisted spinal surgery, call 714.456.BACK (714.456.2225).

The following UC Irvine Healthcare surgeons have been trained in the use of the SpineAssist device:

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