Host: Mark Nolan Hill, MD

Guest: Paul Holman, MD

Many of our patients who suffer from significant back pain put off surgery as long as they can, relying primarily on medical and physical therapy while hoping to avoid an elaborate operative procedure. Yet as with so many areas of medicine today, minimally invasive techniques are providing new options for patients with back pain, and others who face spine surgery. As with all new procedures, we have to ask, What are the fundamental risks and rewards? Dr. Paul Holman, a neurosurgeon for the Methodist Neurological Institute at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, hones in on key features of the newest approaches to minimally invasive spinal surgery: the expanding range of patients who are candidates for these procedures, common complications and the evolving technology that makes this all possible. Dr. Mark Nolan Hill hosts.