04/08/2026
New research from Dr. Roger Härtl challenges a long-standing rule in spine surgery.
For patients with an unstable vertebra at one spinal level and nerve compression at the next, textbook teaching has said: fuse them both. But Dr. Härtl's new study in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine shows that a minimally invasive "one-and-a-half level" technique — fusing only the unstable level while decompressing the adjacent one — achieved a 96% fusion rate with no neurological complications.
The result? Roughly 9 in 10 patients avoided a larger multilevel fusion, meaning faster recovery and better mobility.
"It's not a rare problem — it's one of the most common surgeries we do," says Dr. Härtl. "Nobody seems to really try to figure out how new technology can be used to minimize the need for fusion."
Read more about the study and what questions to ask your surgeon 🔗: https://neurosurgery.weill.cornell.edu/about-us/news-updates/do-patients-need-less-spine-surgery-we-thought-new-weill-cornell-medicine
