Anterior Approaches to Thoracic and Thoraco （前方法胸和Thoraco）.pdf

7 Anterior Approaches to Thoracic and Thoraco-Lumbar Spine Aydın Nadir Department of Thoracic Surgery, Cumhuriyet University, School of Medicine Sivas- Türkiye 1. Introduction Anterior surgical approaches have been used for lower cervical, thoracic, and upper lumbar vertebrae since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century. Hodgson et al. were the first surgeons to perform spinal fusion with anterior approach for the treatment of a paraplegic patient with Pott’s disease in 1956. Cauchoix and Binet reported access to vertebral corpuses from C7 to T4 using a median sternotomy in 1957. Moreover, in 1969, Perot and Munro described trans-thoracic removal of a thoracic disc causing compression on the spinal cord. Similarly Dwyer et al. described the use of anterior approach for the surgical treatment of scoliosis (1969) and Harrington anteriorly stabilized vertebral fractures due to tumors with methyl methacrylate. First investigators to describe anterior approach with VATS were Mack et al. (1993) (1-4). Surgical interventions for vertebral fractures include anterior, posterior and combined approaches, with the anterior approach providing a very good exposure. Posterior approach poses some technical inadequacy, with recurrence rates higher than the anterior approach. In fractures causing angle deformity, anterio