Role of minimally invasive surgery for adult spinal deformity in preventing complications.

With the aging population, there is a rising prevalence of degenerative spinal deformity and need of surgical care for these patients. Surgical treatment for adult spinal deformity (ASD) is often fraught with a high rate of complications. Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has for the past decade been adopted by spine surgeons to treat ASD in the hopes of reducing access-related morbidity and perioperative complications. The benefits of MIS approach in general and recent development of MIS techniques to avoid long-term complications such as pseudoarthrosis or proximal junctional kyphosis are reviewed.