EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A major medical milestone has been reached right here in the Borderland. A local neurosurgeon at UMC Surgical Hospital recently completed his 300th Oblique Lateral Interbody Fusion, or OLIF, procedure.
The OLIF procedure is a highly specialized spinal technique that only a handful of surgeons nationwide can practice — and it can send patients home within a day of their surgery. Dr. Jaime Gasco, with UMC Healthcare Partners’ Nexus Neurosciences, reached this benchmark in February.
Gasco trained in Spain to learn the OLIF procedure, which is a minimally invasive surgery designed for patients suffering from sciatica and severe lower back pain caused by spinal degeneration. The advanced endoscopic approach effectively does away with what used to be a 3 1/2-hour invasive procedure.
“We’ve converted that to a 25-minute operation for a single level and about 40 minutes for a two-level operation, with patients able to go home the next day,” Gasco said. He noted that the procedure requires “no drains and three small incisions.”
Because the minimally invasive procedure avoids open exposure of the spine, recovery times are drastically reduced…