RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Wrong-level surgery is a rare but unresolved issue in spine surgery. Some proposed protocols with high success rates, but it remains a risk with potential complications for the patient. Surgical navigation offers more accurate surgery, without additional irradiation related to the imaging device, in order to optimize the surgical guidance. METHODS: We describe our institutional technique with a needle placed under fluoroscopy at 3 cm from the incision line at the disc level to be operated, in order to guide the surgical approach; and we report a prospective evaluation of all patients during a six-month period operated by microdiscectomy for symptomatic lumbar discus hernia, whose hernia level was landmarked with this technique. We collected demographic, clinical-such as visual analog scale (VAS) of pain and Oswestry disability index (ODI) scores-operative and irradiation data for effective dose calculation. RESULTS: Thirty patients were included in the study. No wrong-level procedure was performed. Mean time for landmarking was 2.22 [1-5] minutes. Average operative time was 54.5 [30-150] minutes. The effective dose related to the imaging device use was 0.032 (0.007-0.092) mSv. The effective dose was also correlated to body mass index and disc level (P=0.05). The operative duration, complication rate and postoperative VAS and ODI scores were similar to the current literature. CONCLUSIONS: We advocate the use of percutaneous needle guidance, avoiding wrong-level microdiscectomy and helping the surgeon as a "navigation-like" device with minimal additional irradiation for the patient.
