Patent ID: 7309338

Claim:
Apparatus for obtaining access to a series of adjacent vertebral bodies located within a human lumbar and sacral spine, the vertebral bodies separated by intact or damaged intervertebral spinal discs, and performing disc augmentation of a selected spinal disc, the apparatus comprising: means for exposing a sacral position of a sacral vertebra in alignment with a visualized, axial instrumentation/fusion line extending in said axial aspect through the series of adjacent vertebral bodies; bore forming means operable from the exposed sacral position for boring a trans-sacral axial bore axially through the vertebral bodies of said series of adjacent vertebral bodies and forming an axial disc opening into or through any intervertebral, spinal discs; and means for performing a disc augmentation of any of the spinal discs through the axial bore and axial disc opening exposed or traversed by said axial bore.