Lumbar Fusion of L5-S1 Surgery

At each level of the spine, there is a disc space in the front and paired facet joints in the back. Working together, these structures define a motion segment (Fig. 1A). Back pain may re­sult when injury or degenerative changes allow abnormal movement of the vertebrae to rub against one another, known as an unstable motion segment (Fig. 1B). Two vertebrae need to be fused to stop the motion at one segment. For example, an L4-L5 fusion is a one-level spinal fusion (Fig. 1C). A two-level fusion joins three vertebrae together and so on.