• Dominik Adl Amini, Manuel Moser, Lisa Oezel, Jiaqi Zhu, Jennifer Shue, Andrew A Sama, Frank P Cammisa, Federico P Girardi, and Alexander P Hughes.
• Hospital for Special Surgery, Spine Care Institute, 535 East 70th Street, New York, NY, 10021, USA.
• Eur Spine J. 2022 Jul 1; 31 (7): 1611-1620.

PurposeTo develop a decision-making pathway for primary SA-LLIF. Furthermore, we analyzed the agreement of this pathway and compared outcomes of patients undergoing either SA-LLIF or 360-LLIF.MethodA decision-making pathway for SA-LLIF was created based on the results of interviews/surveys of senior spine surgeons with over 10 years of experience. Internal validity was retrospectively evaluated using consecutive patients undergoing either SA-LLIF or 360-LLIF between 01/2018 and 07/2020 with 3D-printed Titanium cages. An outcome assessment looking primarily at revision surgery and secondary at cage subsidence, changes in disk and foraminal height, global and segmental lumbar lordosis, duration of surgery, estimated blood loss, and length of stay was carried out.Results78 patients with 124 treated levels (37 SA-LLIF, 41 360-LLIF) were retrospectively analyzed. The pathway showed a direct agreement (SA-LLIF) of 100.0% and an indirect agreement (360-LLIF) of 95.1%. Clinical follow-up averaged 13.5 ± 6.5 months including 4 revision surgeries in the 360-LLIF group and none in the SA-LLIF group (p = 0.117). Radiographic follow-up averaged 9.5 ± 4.3 months, with no statistically significant difference in cage subsidence rate between the groups (p = 0.440). Compared to preoperative images, patients in both groups showed statistically significant changes in disk height (p < 0.001), foraminal height (p < 0.001), as well as restoration of segmental lordosis (p < 0.001 and p = 0.018). The SA-LLIF group showed shorter duration of surgery, less estimated blood loss and shorter LOS (p < 0.001).ConclusionThe proposed decision-making pathway provides a guide to adequately select patients for SA-LLIF. Further studies are needed to assess the external applicability and validity.Level Of Evidence IiiDiagnostic: individual cross-sectional studies with consistently applied reference standard and blinding.© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

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