Sacroiliac (SI) joint fusion is a surgical procedure performed in an operating room, with either general or spinal anesthesia. It is a minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedure, it requires a small incision (about one to two inches long), along the side of the buttock.
Dr. Spencer will use a specially designed system to guide the instruments that prepare the bone and facilitate placement of the titanium implants across the sacroiliac joint. Fluoroscopy, an imaging technique commonly used by physicians, provides Dr. Spencer real-time moving images of internal structures during the procedure. Typically, three implants are used in a procedure.
Both the surgical technique and the implant are designed to pretect the tissues surrounding the surgical site.
The whole minimally invasive surgical SI Joint procedure takes about an hour. Recovery time is significantly less than open surgery.