Chief of anesthesia at The Minimally Invasive Surgery Center of New England, Dr. Brian Klagges is a board-certified anesthesiologist. Throughout his career, Brian Klagges, MD, has worked in various positions across numerous medical facilities and organizations. Dr. Brian Klagges specializes in carrying out multiple procedures including minimally invasive spinal fusion.
Spinal fusion is a surgical procedure that permanently joins two or more bones to discourage movement between them. Minimally invasive spinal fusion relies on a smaller surgical incision to perform the surgery. Patients are given general anesthesia and then a tiny incision is made to access the spine. The surgeon uses a specialized tool to gently push away the back muscles and weld together two or more vertebrae. Either a graft (bone strips from the surgical area or another area of the body such as the pelvic bone) or synthetic material is used to bind the bones together.
Minimally invasive spinal fusion patients heal faster, as only a small incision is made and the spine muscles are not cut as they are during traditional surgery. This procedure helps to treat a wide variety of medical conditions that cause extreme back pain such as degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, and scoliosis, as well as an infection, fracture, or tumor in the spinal column.
