CASE REPORT article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Orthopedic Surgery
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2025.1621533
This article is part of the Research TopicMinimally Invasive Treatments for Lumbar Spine DisordersView all 18 articles
Oblique lumbar interbody fusion- Address to an anatomical challenge: A case reportAbstract
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, China
- 2Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Oblique lumbar interbody fusion (OLIF) is a minimally invasive technique for the treatment of degenerative diseases of the lumbar spine, and the left operative window is always used to avoid the inferior vena cava (IVC). However, in cases with anatomical variations-particularly vascular anomalies, which most significantly impact surgical approaches-the right retroperitoneal approach may serve as a preferable alternative. This case report describes a 59-year-old man with lumbar instability and a rare left-sided IVC who underwent OLIF via a right approach.Preoperative imaging of this patient showed an isolated left IVC. The procedure was performed through a right-sided surgical corridor bounded medially by the abdominal aorta(AA) and laterally by the right psoas major muscle. The approach was supplemented with lateral screw-rod instrumentation to maintain stability. The patient's neurological function improved significantly after surgery, and the surgical approach proved to be feasible while maintaining biomechanical stability while avoiding vascular risk. This case highlights the importance of vascular evaluation before OLIF. Especially for the rare left-sided IVC, OLIF via right approach can effectively improve safety.
Keywords: oblique lumbar interbody fusion, Left-sided inferior vena cava, Vascular anomaly, Lateral screw-rod fixation, Lumbar degenerative disease
Received: 08 May 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Meng, Gao, Meng, Li, Niu and Wei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jingchao Wei, Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang, 050051, Hebei Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.