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I think there is a lot that is going on nowadays. Clearly, minimally invasive surgery in the
spine is one of the forefront activities that are happening in neurosurgery. The reason
why you want to have a minimally invasive type of surgery is because of the time for
the surgery. It is less time in the operating room, less anesthesia, which I think is important.
I think there is less blood loss, and I think also the recovery time for the patient while
in the hospital and then postoperatively when we see them a month later, 2 months later,
3 months later, 6 months later, they are doing much, much better. So clearly, the advent
of minimally invasive surgery is important on all factors and as a surgeon, you need
to stay up with the times to make sure that we can actually perform these kind of surgeries
and the types of surgeries for these patients.
Clearly, there is a lot of going on. Probably about 10 years ago, there was a real push
for minimally invasive surgery, but it kind of died down a little bit, but now clearly
with the advent of newer retractor systems with new technology such as the devices that
we can use, the devices that are either plastic, like what we call peek devices which can be
inserted in small areas, the advent of going in different approaches. There is a surgery
that we can do going in from the side, the side of the body doing some type of lumbar
spine surgery where you don’t mess up any of the muscles or the tendons or the ligaments.
You don’t have to even address a lot of the nerve issues because you can approach
it from the side. So being able to have different types of retractors and technology from that
standpoint has been able to kind of grow up and we are able to use it nowadays. Being
able to use a variety and different types of approaches such as the extreme far lateral
interbody fusions that we can do. Even a lateral fusion that we can do, we can now do it a
lot easier and safer for patients and that’s what it is really all about. It’s really
being able to accomplish what we can accomplish safely for patients, but still do what we
need to do to structurally keep them sound.
The benefits for this opportunity that’s in Cyprus is vast. There’s no question.
A lot of patients could benefit. It’s now getting harder and harder for insurance companies
to allow physicians to actually perform physical therapy, x-rays, or MRIs, let alone the surgeries,
and clearly the insurance companies are trying to decrease their costs and one way to do
it is to decrease the surgeries. Well if these patients need it, if these patients are in
pain, you have a patient, you know, that we are seeing earlier today where they’ve got
back pain, hip pain, leg pain, they’ve been through medications, the therapy, the injections.
It’s been six months, it’s been a year, they’re still in pain, we know there are
things we can do to help them from a surgical standpoint, minimally invasive is the way
to go, and how do we provide that service? Well, there are some insurance companies that
say, you can’t provide that service. Or there are some patients that want to go elsewhere
to get that service provided. Well, this is clearly an opportunity for people not only
in the U.S., but internationally because you have patients that are being seen internationally
in the U.S. now.
We see patients from Greece today. We see patients from Russia. Why can’t they have
an opportunity to have some type of American-trained physician who can then perform this type of
surgery closer to where they live, and I think that’s where the opportunities that we can
bring ourselves closer to the patients internationally.
There’s a lot of new technology that gets held back in the U.S. Right or wrong, that’s
the way the system is, and being in the forefront of spine, we are constantly evaluating and
changing and seeing what dynamically can help patients and sometimes we are restricted by
not being able to perform these types of surgeries here in the U.S. Certainly being able to go
to Cyprus and have our knowledge for what’s going on with the opportunity of expanding
the surgical advancements for patients.
I think first and foremost we have to realize that there is a lot of people that suffer
from back pain and most of the time people get well without the need of any type of operation,
but there is clearly a way, a program that can be made to help patients whether they
go through medications, whether they go through physical therapy, whether they go through
steroid injections, and then a variety of different types of steroid injections. Most
of the time people get better from that, but in those countries they don’t get those
types of technologies or that type of treatment. Certainly, AIMIS can do that. In addition
to that, there are patients that don’t get better. There’s patients that still have
the problems with the back problems and the leg problems and the hip problems and they’re
not any better, it’s affecting their lifestyle, then clearly if they are a candidate, after
going through all of those nonsurgical treatments, all the conservative treatment first, after
they have been through that and they are not any better, then the next step is for them
to consider an operation and is there an operation that we can perform. Well with American-trained
physicians being able to perform the surgeries that we do here in the U.S., we clearly can
perform them elsewhere and Cyprus allows us the opportunity, AIMIS allows us the opportunity,
to take our technology and our knowledge to the patients internationally.