Naples doctor makes breakthrough in spinal fusion surgery

Of all the back surgeries, a spinal fusion is probably the most dreaded, but that could change thanks to a breakthrough procedure pioneered right here in Southwest Florida.

A local surgeon is patenting a new method that may one day become the standard of treatment.

Just about anything that can go wrong has gone wrong in Steve Doerter’s back.

“I have severe scoliosis. I have degenerative disc disease. I have spinal stenosis,” said Doerter.

For years, he suffered, going as far as implanting a spinal cord stimulator to lower the pain. Until one day, he hit a tipping point.

“I was just doing a very simple stretch, and something gave,” said Doerter.

That led him to Naples neuro-spine surgeon Dr. Mark Frenkel.

“We have patients all the time who are just absolutely debilitated,” said Frenkel.

The surgery of last resort is a spinal fusion- linking vertebrae together to stop movement and pain. The procedure evolved to small tools and incisions but still required a large cut in the back to place rods and screws that hold things together until the bones fuse.

“And that incision in the back is often very large and very painful. We have to cut a lot of muscle in order to put in the rods and screws, and that really just makes recovery difficult,”
said Frenkel.

After performing many of these big surgeries, Frenkel thought of a better way. With the backing of the physician’s regional medical center, he is patenting a new approach.

One that fuses the spine without rods and screws.

“Instead of putting in rods and screws, I take these tiny little needles, and I curve them through one bone, through the spacer, into the other bone, and I inject cement,” said Frenkel.

He’s calling it the cem-lif procedure since it’s based on cement already approved for use in the spine to reinforce fractures.

“The real innovation here is putting it across the bones, so from one bone through the spacer in the disc space, into the other bone,” said Frenkel.

Dr. Frenkel’s done 20 of these so far. The first patient was Doerter.

“He gave me a brief review, and I said, ‘I’ll be your guinea pig. I trust you. Let’s go for it,'” said Doerter.

He underwent his lumbar fusion in January.

Feeling better than he has in years, a major surgery was almost a walk in the park.

“Because I had absolutely no hardware, no rods, no screws, no nothing with this process, and the pain I was saved in recovery is immeasurable,” said Doerter.

“Comparing the traditional approach with the folks who had this procedure, I mean, it’s like night and day,” said Frenkel.

As he adds to his number of cases, Frenkel is making a case that his procedure might one day be the new normal for spine fusions.

Without a big incision, patients recover quicker and have less chance of infection. Frenkel also says his patients get by with far fewer opioid pain meds.