SPINE SURGERY THROUGH THE BELLY BUTTON!
website NovApproach Spine
surgeon presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhpSrqNeDjE&t=9s
The belly button may not seem to be a dynamic participant in the workings of the body. It has a new life purpose, however, thanks to a visionary entrepreneur and a talented spine surgeon.
Raymond Cloutier is founder and president of NovApproach Spine, LLC. Seven years ago he attended a meeting where he observed a company presentation on a retractor for gastrointestinal surgery. “These surgeons are going through the umbilicus,” he thought. “Wouldn't it be great if what they have learned could be applied to spine surgery?”
Sang Hyeop Jeon, M.D. is a spine surgeon at the Spine Health Wooridul Hospital in Busan, Korea. Along with his talented colleagues, he has breathed life into Cloutier’s vision and has now performed approximately 300 surgeries using the umbilicus as the access point.
Dr. Jeon, who has trained four other surgeons on the procedure, recently presented the results of the first 35 of his patients at the Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (SMISS).
“I call the procedure TULIF, as in ‘Trans-Umbilical Lumbar Interbody Fusion.’...
