At some point in life you may find yourself inhibited by not only your back pain, but also difficulty walking any distance, gardening, golfing, hunting, or exercising.  Virtually any activity.  You try a variety of exercises, massage, and rest.  Your doctor may even prescribe physical therapy or chiropractic treatments.  Unfortunately none of these modalities help you achieve the sustained performance you need to live the life you want to live.  You get a lumbar MRI that shows degenerative disc disease and stenosis or nerve root compression.  Your doctor refers you to a neurosurgeon or orthopedic spine surgeon and you are now considering a big surgery to try to get better.  

This is the time more than ever to take the role of “CEO of your health care” and and take control of your treatment decisions.

Dr. Larson’s “The Perfect Laminectomy” procedure  is a solution for lumbar stenosis with radiculopathy or neurogenic claudication that often eliminates the need for a wide open laminectomy or a lumbar fusion.

“The Perfect Laminectomy” 
Step by step

Step 1:  Minimally invasive surgical approach to lumbar stenosis segment.

A small paralumbar incison is made and a tubular retractor is directed over a series of dilators to the area of concern.  Intraoperative fluoroscopy is used to confirm the correct level.

Step 2:  Microneurosurgical decompression of the pinched nerve root(s).

Using a high power microscope and microneurosurgical tools Dr. Larson performs a laminectomy, medical facetectomy, and foraminotomy to selectively decompress the pinched nerves without disrupting the rest of the spine.  The popularity of this minimally invasive technique is only limited by a steep learning curve.  “It’s when you are on the other side of this learning curve that you have the opportunity as a surgeon to offer less invasive surgery to your patients.”

Step 3:  Harvesting and Preparation of stem cells.

Bone marrow is a fantastic source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).  The bone marrow of the posterior iliac crest in the vicinity of the posterior lumbar spine has a very high concentration of MSCs and it is easily harvested by bone marrow aspirate (BMA) using a small specialized needle.  Once harvested, the BMA is then processed using an FDA approved minimal manipulation kit to purify and concentrate the autologous MSCs for same day use in the patient.

Step 4:  Disc space rejuvination
with Stem cells.

After Dr. Larson successfully decompresses the pinched nerve, he directs his attention to treating the degenerative disc.  “Rather then leaving the disc alone to continue to degenerate along the degenerative disc cascade, a key step of “The Perfect Laminectomy” is to treat the degenerative disc with a stem cell injection to attempt to reverse or slow down the process”.  The intradiscal stem cell injection is done precisely with intraoperative fluoroscopic guidance.