I know hundreds of patients with ADR. It is a serious procedure and like all spine surgery, comes with substantial chance of failure. However, my experience with ADR compared to fusion is that success tends to mean more success than fusion, and that failure tends to mean less failure.
Yes... I know the horrible stories... I probably know more of them more intimately than anyone else in the world. But... for the most part, the stories are good. The successes far outweigh the failures.
To say that the successes here are the lucky ones 'of the few percent that it works on' is contrary to my experience. I've now handled more than 800 cases, and know many hundreds more cases that I have not worked on. Again, the good far outweighs the bad.
If I had to do it again, I would still do ADR instead of the alternatives.
Mark
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