Background:

Lateral lumbar interbody fusion has inherent limitations, such as the necessity to reposition the patient. To overcome this limitation, the prone transpsoas (PTP) approach for lateral lumbar interbody fusion has been developed.

Objective:

To report clinical and radiographic outcome measures of a series of patients who underwent PTP at our hospital.

Methods:

A retrospective chart review was conducted to identify patients who underwent PTP for degenerative lumbar spine disease between September 2019 and August 2021. A thorough analysis of clinical and radiographic outcome measures for these patients was conducted.

Results:

Our search resulted in the identification of 15 consecutive patients. Four patients were operated using the assistance of fluoroscopy-based instrument tracking. Overall, the mean follow-up duration was 11.9 ± 7.9 months. Radiographically, the PTP approach resulted in significant postoperative improvement of lumbar lordosis (P = .03) and pelvic incidence minus lumbar lordosis (P < .005). No significant difference was found postoperatively in other regional sagittal alignment parameters, including pelvic tilt, sacral slope, or pelvic incidence. Clinically, the patients' Oswestry Disability Indices (P = .002) and Short Form Survey-12 Physical Scores improved significantly (P = .01). The estimated mean blood loss for patients who underwent the PTP procedure was 137.7 ± 96.4 mL, the mean operative time was 212.5 ± 77.1 minutes, and the mean hospital stay was 2.7 ± 1.4 days. One patient each had superficial wound infection, transient paralytic ileus, transient pulmonary embolism, transient urinary retention, or required revision lumbar surgery.

Conclusion:

This study demonstrates that the PTP approach is associated with significant improvement in radiographic and clinical outcomes.