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Interactive · Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

Minimally Invasive Disc Surgery

Two operations take the pressure off a pinched nerve through a very small opening: an endoscopic discectomy, done through a portal about the width of a pencil with a camera, and a microdiscectomy, done through a small tube under an operating microscope. The four views below walk through both — where the incision actually goes, what the camera sees, what the surgeon sees down the microscope, and how little bone comes out.

Endoscopic discectomy

The three incisions, on your back

All drawn to the same scale. Choose an approach below or tap an incision to explore it.

Upper body seen from behind in the prone surgical position, arms overhead, showing three lumbar incisions to scale: an L2-3 laminectomy, an L3-4 tubular microdiscectomy, and an L5-S1 endoscopic incision 5 cm to scale Laminectomy L2–3 · ~5–8 cm Microdiscectomy L3–4 · ~2–3 cm tube Endoscopic L5–S1 · ~8 mm
The approach

Endoscopic discectomy

~8 mm

Endoscopic discectomy

DMC Hub · Minimally invasive

Fragment removal through the foramen

Uniportal endoscopic discectomy · transforaminal route · L4–L5

Herniated fragment Working channel Fragment removed in one piece
1 · Fragment
0.0 / 20.0s

Phases

    Microdiscectomy

    The surgeon's view down the retractor during a lumbar microdiscectomy
    the bone window is about 1 cm across
    Step 1 of 7

    Microdiscectomy

    The window in the bone, seen from behind

    How much of the bony roof each approach removes. Pick one to see the same two vertebrae before and after.

    Two lumbar vertebrae seen from behind, intact
    Before — intact
    The same vertebrae after surgery, with bone removed
    After a microdiscectomy

    Microdiscectomy

    ~1 cm window

    How much of the bony arch comes out (illustrative)

    Endoscopic smallest
    Microdiscectomy small
    Laminectomy most of it

    Bar lengths are illustrative, not measurements, and the amount varies with your anatomy and the level being treated. A laminectomy is not a bigger version of the same operation. It is a different operation, done for a different problem (widespread narrowing rather than a single disc fragment).

    Educational tool only. These are simplified illustrations, not a recording of your own surgery. Which approach suits your herniation depends on your anatomy and is decided with your surgeon.