miNEURO: Moonee Ponds

About

The ultimate goal of any surgery is to improve patient's quality and even length of life by restoring normal anatomical relationships between bodily structures. Evolution of surgery and anaesthesiology allowed achieving this goal and successfully manage previously untreatable conditions. However, there is still a lot of space for improvement, in particular in the field of brain and spine surgery. For example, the long-term outcomes after operations on most invasive brain tumours or on severe degenerative spinal conditions still leave much to be desired. Studies investigating patient satisfaction after spine surgeries show that the rate of negative outcomes could be as high as 50%. Improvement of surgery results is not possible without further development of less invasive but more efficient operative techniques.

Minimally invasive procedures represent a logical evolution of surgical philosophy focussing on patient's safety and satisfaction. This philosophy is based on three main principles:

- accurate identification of the problem;

- safe access to the pathological area with minimal injury to the surrounding tissues;

- effective but delicate repair of the problematic structures even if they are located deeply in the body.