Lateral Lumbar Trans-Psoas Interbody Fusion

The lateral lumbar trans-psoas approach has gained increasing attention as an approach to achieve interbody fusion. The lateral approach offers several distinct advantages over the traditional anterior and posterior approaches. Specifically, it has demonstrated short hospital stays, low complication rates, and improved interbody graft placement and associated indirect decompression when used for several degenerative and deformity applications. The lateral approach is associated with thigh symptoms and irritation of the hip flexors which occurs in a minority of patients and typically is transient. There are several subtle aspects of the surgical technique which can minimize approach-related complications, optimize exposure, facilitate interbody graft placement, and indirect decompression, which may improve overall patient outcomes and recovery.