INDIANAPOLIS – It causes extreme pain, numbness, or tingling in the lower back, legs or buttocks,
limiting a person’s ability to walk or even stand for long periods of time. The
reality is that lumbar spinal stenosis – a narrowing of the lower spinal canal
– affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans.
Now comes a treatment which eases the pain and other conditions associated
with spinal stenosis and physicians at Franciscan St. Francis Health have been
using it to help their patients. It’s called mild® (minimally
invasive lumbar decompression), an outpatient
procedure which usually takes less than an hour and enables patients to resume
light activities within a few days.
“The mild procedure is for patients who are too old or too sick for more
open surgery, or who want to try something less invasive first,” said Robert
Prince, MD, a pain expert with Franciscan
Physician Network Spine Specialists. “While traditional
surgery is effective, it requires general
anesthesia, lengthier hospital stays and poses a higher risk of complications.”
Prince is one of the few physicians in Indiana and nationally who are certified to perform mild, which was developed by the California-based Vertos Medical Inc.
Lumbar spinal stenosis
generally manifests in people 50 years and older, and the likelihood of
developing it increases as they age. Non-surgical treatments include a regimen
of specialized exercise, activity modification and cortisone injections, the
latter of which can only temporarily reduce symptoms.
Here’s how mild works: A small incision is made in the affected area and then
specialized imagery and tools are used to remove excess small pieces of bone
and ligament tissue. This restores space in the spinal canal and decreases
compression of the nerves. No general anesthesia, implants, or stitches are
necessary with this procedure.
A study conducted
at the Cleveland Clinic found that mild is both effective and efficient and offers
most patients a new alternative. After monitoring 40 patients over a
one-year period, researchers found that standing time for mild patients increased on average from
eight minutes to nearly an hour and that the patients' average walking distance
increased from 246 feet to nearly three quarters of a mile.
