Our Spine Surgery Program has earned the Disease-Specific Care certification from The Joint Commission for demonstrating excellence in surgical spine care.

Our directors, Dr. Patrick Roth and Dr. Roy Vingan, possess more than 50 years of combined experience in treatment of the spine. They have been consistently chosen as “Top Doctors” in New York Magazine, New Jersey Magazine, 201 Magazine, and received numerous “compassionate doctor awards” and “People’s Choice Awards”. They are featured in Becker’s “101 Spine Surgery Practices to Know”.

Pioneers in minimally invasive and robot-assisted spine surgery, they have distinguished themselves as the first in the region to offer Mazor Robotics Renaissance® spine surgery.

Additionally, our spine experts have developed an innovative nonsurgical spine care treatment plan that emphasizes core strengthening and embodied cognition (the mind-body connection).

Conditions We Treat

• Arthritis
• Back pain
• Degenerative disc disease
• Disc herniation/slipped disc
• Myelopathy
• Neck pain
• Osteoporosis
• Radiculopathy
• Sciatica
• Spinal fractures/trauma
• Spinal stenosis
• Spinal tumors
• Spondylolisthesis
• Spondylosis

Diagnosis

When diagnosing the cause of your back pain, your health care provider will review your personal health history and conduct a physical exam. Your provider also may order blood tests, imaging studies such as X-rays or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or additional tests such as bone density scans.

Our neurological specialists also offer a procedure called discography, which uses a special dye that is injected into your spinal disc before you receive an X-ray or computed tomography (CT) scan, to help your physician identify disc problems.

Treatment

Our spine surgeons will evaluate your condition and develop a comprehensive treatment plan. In many cases, our surgeons may first recommend a trial of nonsurgical treatment before considering surgery. Treatment options may include:

Nonsurgical Treatment

The Spine Center at Hackensack University Medical Center has a multi-disciplinary approach and conservative management of back pain is the goal of the team.

Led by Patrick Roth, M.D., a team of physiatrists, pain management physicians and neurosurgeons at Hackensack University Medical Center are working together to offer nonsurgical approaches to relieve chronic back pain, including a spinal care treatment plan that emphasizes core strengthening and embodied cognition (the mind-body connection).

Patients who are prescribed the nonsurgical treatment plan also receive a copy of Dr. Roth’s book, The End of Back Pain, to provide further information and guidance on the embodied cognition and core strengthening treatment approach.

Other nonsurgical treatment options for back pain may include:

• Physical therapy and exercise
• Steroid injections to reduce inflammation
• Lumbar ablation using radiofrequency energy directed at the nerve(s) causing pain
• Nerve blocks to target nerves causing discomfort
• Hydrotherapy

Surgical Treatment

If nonsurgical treatments have failed to provide pain relief or restore mobility, you may be a candidate for surgery. Our spine surgeons use the latest minimally invasive techniques, intraoperative navigation, robotic surgical systems and other advanced technology to provide safe and effective surgical treatment.

For example, Hackensack University Medical Center is the first hospital in New Jersey to offer Mazor Robotics Renaissance minimally invasive spine surgery. Mazor Robotics technology has been clinically validated to ensure 1.5-mm accuracy for increased patient safety as compared to freehand spine surgery.

Before entering the operating room, surgeons use Renaissance to plan the optimal surgery in a CT-based 3D simulation of the patient’s spine. During surgery, Renaissance guides the surgeon’s hand and tools to the precise preplanned location.

Our surgeons offer a full range of spine surgery procedures, including:

• Anterior and posterior cervical surgery
• Anterior lumbar fusions
• Complex restorative surgery
• Extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF)
• Intradiscal therapies
• Kyphoplasty
• Microdiscectomy
• Minimally invasive fusions
• Minimally invasive surgery of the spine (MISS)
• Percutaneous disc decompressions
• Percutaneous discectomy
• Sacroiliac fusions
• Thoracic discectomies
• Tumor resections

Rehabilitation

To help you get back to your normal activities as soon as possible, our skilled physical therapists develop personalized treatment programs for back pain that focus on improving mobility, strength and function while reducing pain and discomfort.