• Vincent Raymaekers, Gert Roosen, Eric Put, Steven Vanvolsem, Salah-Eddine Achahbar, Sacha Meeuws, Mark Plazier, Maarten Wissels, and Sven Bamps.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium; Faculty of Medicine and Life Science, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium.
• World Neurosurg. 2023 Apr 1; 172: e299e303e299-e303.

BackgroundSpondylodiscitis is, after tissue sampling, initially managed with intravenous antibiotics. In patients with treatment failure, surgical debridement and stabilization is considered. An anterior or posterior approach has already been reported as a successful surgical access, but is associated with a large exposure and a significant morbidity.MethodsWe present a multicenter Belgian case-series on the use of a minimally invasive extreme lateral interbody fusion procedure with add-on percutaneous pedicle screw fixation for patients with a need for surgical debridement and tissue samples or intractable back pain due to spondylodiscitis. Patient characteristics, microbiology results, antibiotic treatment, pre- and postoperative Visual Analogue Pain Score (VAS) scores, time to bony consolidation, complications and duration of the hospital stay were collected.ResultsSeven patients with one level spondylodiscitis were included. The mean age 64 years with a mean preoperative VAS score of 8.86 ( ± 0.90). Postoperative VAS score significantly decreased to 2.57 (-70.3%, P < 0.001). Mean antibiotic treatment duration was 8 weeks. Median duration of the hospital stay was 14 days. Patients were followed for 1 year. Complete bony consolidation was observed in 6 out of 7 patients after 1 year. One patient had a stable pseudarthrosis.ConclusionsThese results indicate that extreme lateral interbody fusion topped off with a percutaneous pedicle screw fixation might be a feasible, safe and valuable choice to surgically treat patients with spondylodiscitis with fast and important improvement in VAS. Further prospective research might strengthen the sparsely existing literature of minimally invasive surgery for spondylodiscitis to provide the best possible care.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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