Technical innovations are supposed to make a person’s life more comfortable. It is a continuous process. There are special factors a surgeon has to take notice of when a patient is confronted with a surgical treatment. Firstly, standardization of the treatment. Then avoidance of unnecessary anatomical damage. With special tools this avoidance of unnecessary damage is possible. A fascinating experience for me as a child was when I took my wrist watch for repair and the watchmaker examined my watch with a loupe for its possible error like diagnosing a patient. A watch containing hundreds of millimetric pieces which had to be magnified with a special tool to fix it, like a surgeon uses special surgical tools for treating a patient.
Endoscopic approaches have been used for a century now, but in neurosurgery it became popular after Yaşargil introduced the surgical microscope. Today’s microendoscopic procedures rely on Yaşargil’s nuances. All in all, the aim of endoscopic spine surgery is based on seeing a magnification of the surgical field with the endoscope, and treating the patient. Tissue damage is minimal compared to classic microsurgery and it is certain that in the future newer surgical tools will be developed to provide much better outcomes.
In my faculty years, gastroenterologists could only observe the pathology, take images and biopsies with endoscopic tools. Today, the editor of this book was able to remove a patient’s intradural tumor with the endoscope which is a quite challenging procedure. The authors of this book and the ones who contributed to it are those who practiced their art with love and provided an excellent end product with their work. I hereby congratulate Dr. Salim Şentürk for his contribution to Turkish medicine and wish him all the best for his bright future.
Ali Fahir Özer
Contents
1. History of Endoscopic Spine Surgery
İsmail İştemen
2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Endoscopic Spine Surgery
Serdar Çevik
3. Set-up of the Operating Theater in Endoscopic Spine Surgery and
Surgical Instruments
Timur Yıldırım
4. Anesthesia in Endoscopic Spine Surgery
İsmail İştemen, Barış Arslan
5. Rehabilitation After Endoscopic Spine Surgery
Zeynep Turan
6. Endoscopic Anatomy of The Cervical Spine
Emrah Egemen, Fatih Yakar, Tuncer Süzer
7. Endoscopic Cervical Posterior Foraminotomy and Discectomy
Hyen Sung Kim, Nitin Adsul, Il-Tae Jang, Seong-Hoon Oh, İdris Avcı
8. Percutaneous Endoscopic Cervical Laminoforaminotomy
Ali Dalgıç
9. Complications of Endoscopic Cervical Surgery
Tunç Öktenoğlu, Koray Ur
10. Endoscopic Anatomy of The Thoracic Spine
Erkan Kaptanoğlu, Yahya Güvenç, Tunç Laçin, Toğrul Cavadov, Onur Erdoğan
11. Thoracoscopic Discectomy
Ülkün Ünlü Ünsal, Ali Fahir Özer
12. Endoscopic Approaches to The Thoracic Spine
Percutaneous Endoscopic Thoracic Discectomy (PETD)
İsmail Bozkurt, Onur Yaman
13. Endoscopic Transpedicular Thoracic Discectomy
Mesut Emre Yaman, Tolga Tolunay
14. Complications Associated with Endoscopic Thoracic Spinal Surgery
Mehdi Sasani, Gülşah Öztürk
15. Endoscopic Anatomy of The Lumbar Spine
Göktuğ Akyoldaş
16. Transforaminal Endoscopic Discectomy
Hikmet Uluğ
17. Posterolateral Endoscopic Lumbar Discectomy
Ali Haluk Düzkalır, Salim Şentürk
18. Interlaminar Endoscopic Discectomy
Altay Sencer, Ali Güven Yörükoğlu
19. Endoscopic Approaches to Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Ülkün Ünlü Ünsal
20. Endoscopic Approaches to Various Spinal Pathologies
Salim Şentürk
21. Complications of Endoscopic Lumbar Discectomy
Kemal Paksoy, Ahmet Gürhan Gürçay