The endoscopic spine surgery is the latest minimally invasive surgery offered at OSF, where surgeons use tiny incisions and specialized cameras to visualize and treat a variety of routine and complex spine problems with extreme precision. This is all done while minimizing injury to healthy tissue.

“Part of the beauty of endoscopic spine surgery is that it doesn’t injure any of the natural muscle or bone. It makes recovery much faster and easier for the patient. A lot of patients will come in that morning and be home by noon. The goal is to do same-day surgery and have you back home, playing with your kids, back to work, and back to normal life faster,” says Max Kahn, MD, a spinal and neurosurgeon with OSF HealthCare.

Dr. Kahn and his colleague Sohail Syed, MD, are both fellowship trained in the technique, and have both been performing endoscopic spine surgeries at OSF since April 2024. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) calls the procedure a “safe, effective and efficient alternative for minimally invasive spine surgery.” Eligible patients might be dealing with spinal deformities, herniated discs, spinal stenosis or other spinal issues.

While many people probably have had an achy back at some point, there are two red flags Dr. Kahn looks for when considering endoscopic spine surgery.

“The symptom that catches my attention the most is severe leg pain. After that, it’s severe leg pain with back pain. Back pain alone is challenging because there are a lot of reasons someone can have back pain,” Dr. Kahn says. “You mow the lawn too hard, you shovel too much snow, there are a lot of reasons someone can have back pain. But leg pain or leg pain plus back pain can frequently help us narrow down where exactly on the spine the problem is happening. We can confirm that with MRI, then set you up with an endoscopic surgery.”

Typically, spinal surgeries can come with a long recovery time at an average of 6-12 weeks. Even after that, Dr. Kahn says, you still might not be back to 100%. With the endoscopic spine surgery, Dr. Kahn says recovery time goes down drastically.

“People find that with the smaller surgeries and the smaller incisions, along with minimal blood loss that can be just a drop or two, which is possible with the endoscope, that they’re feeling themselves by two weeks or four weeks maximum. They’re also able to get back to work much faster than they normally would be,” Dr. Kahn says.

Dr. Kahn says he and his team will still work with you on different options first, if they think there are non-surgical treatments that could prove beneficial.

“We do physical therapy or epidural steroid injections to try first. Once a patient knows those therapies aren’t helping, we go to this,” Dr. Kahn says.

Dr. Kahn thinks the future is bright for endoscopic spine surgeries. He says the technology will eventually expand to treat other deadly diseases.

“A very exciting application for this one day will be spinal oncology. Those are colossally huge surgeries that take months to get back to your normal life. That’s on top of things like chemotherapy and radiation, which can make recovery even harder,” Dr. Kahn says. “I think this technology with the minimal incisions and the great view you get of the problem is going to be a fantastic use of this technology for a cancer patient.”

If you believe endoscopic spine surgery is an option for you, contact Dr. Kahn or Dr. Syed at OSF by calling (309) 624-4000.

Video Interview Clips

Spine surgery b-roll

At 94 years old, every day counts for Jim Bier.

The Champaign, Illinois, resident, U.S. Army veteran, and retired map-maker is able to manage things like visiting the store and strolling his backyard gardens – a space resembling the University of Illinois Japan House gardens, which Bier designed. It all comes with less chest pain and easier breathing thanks to a minimally-invasive heart procedure offered at OSF HealthCare.

“I’ve been at home, exercising, building up my legs, and I don't have the difficulties breathing like I did before all this happened back in the garden days,” Bier says. “And so I would say I'm in very good shape at this point.”

Bier pauses and adds with a chuckle, “From my waist up. I still have to work on my legs.”

Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2011, transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR for short, deals with a thickened aortic valve in the heart that can’t fully open. This reduces blood flow and could mean symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting, and fatigue.

Tariq Enezate, MD, a cardiologist at OSF HealthCare Cardiovascular Institute in Urbana, Illinois, explains that the TAVR procedure begins with making a small cut near the patient’s groin. The doctor then inserts a small catheter – “smaller than my little finger,” Dr. Enezate notes – and guides it up to the heart to insert a new valve. This is opposed to the more invasive open-heart surgery, which can lead to a longer and more painful recovery for the patient. Minimally-invasive surgeries like TAVR also avoid the need to stop the patient’s heart.

“Those patients are old. They have a lot of diseases. So, many of them, they are not good candidate for surgery. And the surgery team might think they might not be in good shape and strong enough to handle the stress of open heart surgery,” says Dr. Enezate of potential TAVR patients. “In those situations, TAVR is actually lifesaving.”

For Bier, the lifesaving series of events began on Christmas Eve of 2021. By then, Bier had been dealing with heart problems for nearly a decade and had used a blood thinner after open heart surgery didn’t yield the best results. But a visit to the emergency department that day turned into a week-long stay and the question: What more needed to be done? Eventually, Bier says doctors told him about one last surgery that was needed – “the big one,” as Bier puts it. He needed a new heart valve.

An avid reader, Bier researched the TAVR procedure to allay his concerns.

“I’m a person who goes with the flow,” Bier says. “You talk to any of the nurses who've dealt with me at the hospital. They're saying all the time, ‘Go with the flow.’ That's what I kept telling them all the time. And in that way I'm pretty optimistic about it.”

Still, Dr. Enezate recognizes that even minimally-invasive heart surgery may cause stress. He says the patient’s care team – everyone from the cardiologist to the anesthesia team – meets with the patient and their family several times before the procedure.

After TAVR patients go home, Dr. Enezate explains, they eventually will enter cardiac rehabilitation to rebuild the strength needed to do the everyday activities they love. Other appointments with a provider and medications like a blood thinner are also typical.

“We have a big team of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, therapists, social workers, and so many people,” Dr. Enezate says. “Take care of the patient, take care of their family, answer their questions, get the tests, the procedures that they need. And after the procedure, we are on top of things.”

At OSF HealthCare Heart of Mary Medical Center in Urbana, where TAVR recently launched, that team includes Dr. Enezate, Ashraf Al-Dadah, MD, Alaa Ujayli, MD, and Kelli Lamaster, the cardiac program coordinator. Each of them undertook years of schooling and training to be able to successfully oversee operations like TAVR.

“If you asked a cardiologist 10, 20 years ago and you tell them a patient with valve replacement can go home next day, they would think that you're crazy,” says Dr. Enezate. “But now, it is reality.”

Visit the OSF HealthCare TAVR website for more information and to find a provider near you.

Interview clips - Jim Bier

B-Roll

Previous TAVR stories from the OSF HealthCare Newsroom

Mick Jagger Recovering After TAVR Procedure - April 5, 2019

Forging the Path – TAVR for Congenital Heart - December 10, 2021

New Innovations are the Heartbeat of TAVR - November 3, 2022