Chinese elderly woman has been cured of a stubborn spinal disease for 40 years at Shanghai Long March Hospital, but has searched for famous doctors in the United States without success. | Professor | Shanghai Long March Hospital

"Professor Xiao, Happy Physician's Day! Wishing you all the best!"

Early in the morning of August 19th, Xiao Jianru, the director of the Orthopedic Hospital of the Second Affiliated Hospital of the Naval Medical University, flooded his phone with many blessing messages from all over the country and even around the world.

This text message was sent from New York, USA. Mrs. Shen, who is texting, is over seventy years old and has moved to New York with her husband for many years. At the age of eighteen, she went to the countryside in Heilongjiang, burning earth kilns, moving bricks, pushing carts, and doing all kinds of heavy work. Long term overwork led to serious lumbar disc herniation, which had been tormented by illness for decades.

Since last year, she has been in excruciating pain and even struggling to walk, seriously affecting her normal life. After seeing two of the most professional and authoritative experts in lumbar disc injury in New York without success, Mrs. Shen went to other states in search of medical experts in the spinal field in the United States. The diagnosis and treatment advice given by experts is to perform traditional surgery, which involves large incisions on the spine and the addition of nail plates.

Xiao Jianru

"I'm getting old and can't bear to run around, and my language is not fluent in the United States. Spinal problems are very complex, and treatment takes a long time. If I'm not careful, there will be serious consequences. I dare not have surgery in the United States rashly." Mrs. Shen said. With the advice of her family and friends, she did a lot of homework and decided to return to Shanghai Long March Hospital for minimally invasive surgery.

The Orthopedic Hospital of the Long March Hospital performs 11000-13000 spinal surgeries annually. In recent years, robot minimally invasive surgery has become very mature, allowing many patients to recover quickly after surgery. When Mrs. Shen decided to return to China, her movements were extremely inconvenient, so she overcame many difficulties and flew back to Shanghai in a business sleeper cabin.

After a comprehensive understanding of Mrs. Shen's condition of lumbar disc herniation, Professor Xiao Jianru's team proposed using minimally invasive surgery that can be tolerated by the elderly. Precise robot technology is used for precise positioning, which improves surgical efficiency and minimizes surgical trauma and bleeding, reducing pain to the greatest extent possible.

"The surgery was very successful! On the third day, I walked on the ground and my previous symptoms disappeared. I didn't even need sleeping pills when I slept at night." Mrs. Shen said that after being treated by Professor Xiao's team, she not only had no pain at all, but also could walk freely. At a friend's birthday party, she could sing and dance freely, completely breaking free from the previous state of walking with her waist supported, completely unlike a person who has suffered from lumbar disc herniation for decades.

Dr. Xu Wei, the chief surgeon, explained that the reason for the rapid recovery is twofold: firstly, during the preoperative design, the nerve compression on her was precisely located. The surgery completely relieved the compression, and the symptoms could be significantly relieved. Secondly, with the assistance of robots, the surgery can be minimally invasive. The gap enters the muscle gap, which has minimal impact on the paraspinal muscles. Therefore, after the surgery, a thin drainage tube is placed, and it can be removed the next day. Life can also be taken care of by oneself.

Xu Wei

Xu Wei also found that the problem of lumbar disc herniation is becoming increasingly "younger", and many young people come for surgery. He previously treated a girl in her twenties, Xiaodie, who had a severe lumbar disc herniation to the point of limping. When she arrived, she kept asking, "Dr. Xu, how could I get a herniated intervertebral disc at a young age? Was it misdiagnosed?"

Xiaodie said that because of low back pain, she went everywhere to seek medical advice. From sticking plaster, boiling Chinese medicine to acupuncture and moxibustion and massage, her condition did not improve. From the original discomfort of the lower limb, she developed to limping of the right lower limb. After she went to the provincial hospital for examination, the doctor's diagnostic suggestion was to have the intervertebral disc removed surgically, which made her suddenly flustered. A doctor friend told her that in order to remove the intervertebral disc, a incision of about 8 centimeters needs to be made on the back, and if the intervertebral disc is removed, the joint area will be very fragile. She is still so young, and she doesn't know if it will recur in the future. After struggling for a long time, she made an online appointment and came to Shanghai to attend Xu Wei's outpatient clinic.

After understanding the complete condition, Xu Wei proposed a minimally invasive and effective plan for her - robot assisted mis-TLIF surgery. This is a surgical method that, with the assistance of current high-tech, implements the minimally invasive concept to the extreme. "This surgery maximizes minimally invasive techniques, reducing trauma to the vertebrae, muscles, and even skin to the point where only a single nail is needed. Moreover, with the help of computer calculations, the accuracy of nailing can reach nearly 99.9%, a precision that doctors cannot achieve no matter how trained."

In less than two hours of surgery, she was able to walk on the ground the next day, and Little Butterfly exclaimed that she had witnessed a miracle.