Sang-Ho Lee, chairman of Wooridul Spine Hospital (WSH), has become the first Asian spine surgeon to receive the Parviz Kambin Award, the highest accolade in the field of spine surgery.
Chairman Lee winning the Parviz Kambin Award became a hot talking point because a Korean beat competitors from the US, Europe and Japan to become the first Asian to take home the award.
At NASS 2015, the annual meeting of the North American Spine Society, held in Chicago on October 14, Lee was honored with the Parviz Kambin Award for his contribution to the development of endoscopic spinal surgery.
The winners of the Parviz Kambin Award, given to pioneers in the field of minimally invasive endoscopic spine surgery, are selected by SMISS (Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery) and Joimax (a German developer of technologies and training methods for minimally invasive endoscopic spinal surgery).
The Parviz Kambin Award, named after Dr. Parviz Kambin, has been handed out to Dr. Parviz Kambin (the US), Dr. Michael Schubert, (Munich, Germany), Dr. Menno Iprenburg (Veenhuizen, the Netherlands) and Dr. Anthony Yeung (the US).
In 1992, Chairman Lee developed a laser-assisted endoscopic technique for herniated disk surgery for the first time in the world and succeeded in removing only herniated disk fragments in a safe manner. The following year, his laser-assisted endoscopic technique was introduced at SICOT 1993 (the World Congress of the International Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology).
Since then he has been called the progenitor of a laser-assisted microendoscopic discectomy.
His laser-assisted endoscopic technique is effective in removing only herniated disk fragments while preserving other tissues, such as bones and muscle because a laser endoscope is inserted through a 0.6-centimeter incision.
As his technique ensures minimal scarring, it has innovatively slashed the treatment period, from surgical treatment to hospitalization and recovery. On top of that, it requires only local anesthesia, so it can be applied to elderly patients, as well as patients with diabetes or high blood pressure.
