Background:

Minimally invasive transforaminal interbody fusion (MI-TLIF) can minimize surgical incision, tissue damage, and intraoperative blood loss in the treatment of spondylolisthesis. However, there is a lack of evidence-based research to confirm its clinical efficacy.

Methods:

Chinese and English databases were searched with “open”, “minimally invasive transforaminal interbody fusion”, “MIS-TLIF”, “spondylolisthesis”, and “open transforaminal interbody fusion” as search terms. Rev Man 5.3 provided by the Cochrane system was used to assess the quality of the literature.

Results:

Of the 12 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), 7 references were level A (58.34%), 4 were B level (33.33%), and 1 reference was C level (8.33%). There was a statistically significant difference in intraoperative blood loss between MI-TLIF and open transforaminal interbody fusion (O-TLIF) in the treatment of spondylolisthesis [mean difference (MD) =-349.35, 95% confidence interval (CI): (-410.66, -288.03), P<0.00001]. There was also a statistically significant difference in visual analogue scale (VAS) scores before and after MI-TLIF at the last follow-up [MD =5.72, 95% CI: (4.83, 6.62), P<0.00001], and in the complication rate between MI-TLIF and O-TLIF [odds ratio (OR) =0.48, 95% CI: (0.30, 0.76), P<0.00001].

Discussion:

This meta-analysis confirmed that MI-TLIF could significantly reduce intraoperative blood loss, mitigate patient pain, and reduce the incidence of complications without increasing the operation time in the treatment of spondylolisthesis.