OBJECTIVE: Describe the early results and experience from a reference center in spine surgery in São Paulo, Brazil with transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) technique in its various indications. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 25 patients who underwent surgery with TLIF technique in 2011. One patient was excluded because we considered that TLIF was not the most important technique used. The indications were 9 lumbar disc herniations, 7 spondylolistheses, 4 revision surgeries of which 2 were for pseudoarthroses and 2 for low back pain, and finally, 4 lumbar spinal stenoses. RESULTS: All the patients reported low back pain and/or neurologic claudication improvement when comparing to preoperative status. Only five patients continued using analgesics. Five patients presented some complication, but only two of them were related to the procedure. CONCLUSIONS: TLIF is a safe technique which can be performed at any lumbar level of the lumbar spine and is applicable to the majority of diseases that affect this region.
Spinal fusion; Spondylolisthesis; Low back pain; Spinal stenosis; Lumbosacral region
