Surgical Approaches to the Spine

The desire to expose the spine for surgery by anterior approaches at any level between the head and the sacrum is not new. Spinal pathology is often located anterior to the spinal cord and nerve roots in the cervical and thoracic spine, and anterior to the peripheral nerves that emerge from the lumbosacral spine below the first lumbar ver­ tebra. To treat such pathology one prefers to expose the f...