What services do you provide?

 "In addition to arranging medical treatment for our customers, we can also coordinate the following:

• Flights, visas, accomodation
• Making presentation with details about your treatment, doctor and hospital
• Correspondence with the doctor who will be consulting or treating you
• Translation services
• Airport pick-up and transfer to the hospital
• Providing a support line for friends and family back home
• Sight-seeing tours"  

PLDD - percutanous laser disc decompression

Percutaneous laser disc decompression (PLDD) is a type of surgery in which a laser probe is inserted into the intervertebral disc space and laser energy applied for achieving decompression and neuromodulation thereby relieving the pain. PLDD is a minimally invasive procedure that falls into the category of percutaneous intervertebral surgeries with the aim to significantly reduce the patient’s pain and recover neurological deficit. It is performed under local anesthesia. By a specially designed laser, with a coefficient of absorbing energy adjusted for soft discus tissue, specific amount of heat is sent to achieve the evaporation of the water from the disc without additional thermal damage thus achieving decompression and creation of a stable intradiscal scar that will prevent herniation from reoccurring.

Minimally-invasive selective endoscopic surgery

SED is a method of spinal surgery that announced the beginning of the period of minimally invasive spinal neurosurgery in the nineties of the past century. An American neurosurgeon Parviz Kambin was the first who in 1991. published the results of the treatment he called arthroscopic microdiscectomy. Since then, with the advance of technology and acquiring new knowledge about disc ailments, endoscopic spinal neurosurgery has been rapidly evolving worldwide. The concept of this type of operative procedure has derived from relatively unfavorable results of present conventional spinal surgery and the fact that patients who have undergone traditional surgeries have difficulty with prolonged return to work and to their normal activities. The main principle of this method is minimally invasive approach that enables painless surgeries performed under local anesthesia, surgeries performed on all types of disc hernia, outpatient surgery, rapid recovery and timely start of physical therapy and prompt return to normal activities.

Minimally-invasive METRx surgery

METRx ® tubular system for spinal surgery is a less invasive version of traditional spine surgery in which tubular retractor is applied by using microsurgical techniques to achieve nerve and spinal cord decompression and spine stability. For the first time invasive surgeries like microdiscectomy, laminotomy, foraminotomy and inner decompression of the spinal cord can be performed in a less invasive way and without the use of general anesthesia. The METRX system combines the reliability of conventional microsurgical methods with the advantages of a minimally invasive technique. The advantage of METRX system over traditional microsurgical methods is that now the neurosurgeon can perform spine surgery by using segmental dilators and tubular retractors and apply a technique that minimizes the amount of damage to muscle tissue which is the main factor of spine stability.

Coflex implant for spinal stenosis

Patients who suffer from spinal stenosis syndrome indicated on one or two levels are ideal candidates for interspinous implants. After conservative methods of treatment fail, the treating of these patients is continued surgically. Interspinous implant overcomes the therapeutic gap between conservative and aggressive surgical methods of treatment and enables remission of patients discomfort along with minimal surgical risks. Main indications for coflex interspinous implant are: radiographically confirmed moderate to severe stenosis of the spinal canal with clinical signs of neurogenic claudication and/or foraminal stenosis syndrome caused by a degenerative process on the spine. Coflex implant is indicated to 1 or 2 levels in the region of L1 to S1.

RF - radio frequency denervation

Radiofrequency (RF) Rhizotomy is a therapeutic procedure designed to decrease and/or eliminate severe pain from degenerative facet nerves within the spine. Your pain symptoms may be along your neck, back or low back. RF Rhizotomy is a therapeutic procedure that does not treat the root cause of pain, but rather is designed to decrease or eliminate pain completely by applying highly localized heat to burn the nerve and therefore break the pain signal from the spine to the brain.

Kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty

Vertebroplasty is a minimally invasive, non surgical procedure developed for pain reduction and prevention of developing compression fractures. Vertebroplasty literally means the strenghtning of the vertebral body. Along with pain relief, vertebroplasty is used for strenghtning of vertebra that are extremely osteoporotic but still are not fractured, i.e. the compression fracture still has not occured. Kyphoplasty is a newer treatment for patients with painful vertebral body compression fractures associated with osteoporosis. Like vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that can alleviate up to 90% of pain caused by compression osteoporotic fracture. In addition to pain relief, kyphoplasty can also stabilize fractures, restore height of the vertebra and the patient and decrease spinal deformity.

Information about your leading medical staff

"Our spinal surgeons are leading young surgeons in Europe. They are board certified and fellowship trained with world leading spinal surgeons in Germany, Switzerland and United States of America.

They regularly attend spinal meeting and congresses around the world, for example World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies 2009 in Boston, World Congress of Minimally-Invasive Spine Surgery and Techniques 2008 in Hawaii and will attend World Congress of Minimally-Invasive Spine Surgery and Techniques 2010 in Las Vegas."  

We know all about spine issues. Under unfortunate circumstances founder of this project became minimally-invasive spine surgery researcher, spine enthusiast and patient adviser. Currently he is developing web minimally-invasive spine center in Croatia, with aim to help and educate all spine-sick people on territory of former Yugoslavia.

• The company has in-house spine experience
• We are connected to world-leading young spine surgeons
• We have visited and inspected hospitals where you can be treated
• Our long-term experience gives you confidence

Please follow the link for additional information about Dr. Robert Saftic:

http://www.spine-surgery-croatia.com/Saftic-CV.pdf