Full-endoscopic Trans-Kambin’s Triangle Lumbar Interbody Fusion: Technique and Review of Literature

Transforaminal full-endoscopic(fullendo) lumbar surgery was first introduced as a method for performing discectomy. More recently, it has been used for decompression of lumbar spinal canal stenosis. The fullendo technique can also be performed for lumbar interbody fusion (LIF) through Kambin’s triangle. Similar techniques have been used to insert a cage using fullendo surgery and are described variously in the literature as percutaneous endoscopic LIF, percutaneous endoscopic transforaminal LIF, full-endoscopic LIF, and full-endoscopic transforaminal LIF. Given that a cage is inserted through Kambin’s triangle, we have proposed that this method be known as fullendo trans-Kambin’s triangle lumbar interbody fusion (fullendoKLIF). We have recently created a fullendo-KLIF surgical system. In this paper, we describe our surgical procedure, report the initial clinical results, and review similar fullendo LIF techniques reported in the literature.