Lateral retractor system for minimizing muscle damage in spinal surgery

A method of forming a surgical pathway through a side of a patient's body and through a psoas muscle to an intervertebral disc space, comprising:

• providing a dilator;
• positioning the dilator with respect to a plurality of fibers of the psoas muscle;
• traversing the psoas muscle until the dilator spans the intervertebral disc space;
• providing a dual-blade assembly consisting of a pair of opposing blades, each having an inner surface and an opposing outer surface that extend from a proximal end to a distal end along two longitudinal sides;
• and
• passing the dual-blade assembly proximally-to-distally over the dilator at an insertion orientation in which the opposing outer surfaces of the opposing blades are disposed parallel to the plurality of the fibers of the psoas muscle and at a non-parallel angle to the intervertebral disc space.

A method of creating a surgical pathway to a patient's spine using a lateral retractor system including a dilator, a retractable blade assembly including two opposing blades that each taper to a distal edge, a rotation assembly operably coupled with the retractable blade assembly, and a retraction assembly operably coupled with the retractable blade assembly, the method comprising:

• inserting the dilator with respect to a psoas muscle of the patient such that the dilator spans an intervertebral disc space;
• using a k-wire extending longitudinally through a center of the dilator, anchoring the dilator at the intervertebral disc space;
• passing the retractable blade assembly including two opposing blades over the dilator;
• and
• rotating the opposing blades are about the k-wire from an insertion orientation that is parallel to the psoas muscle to a rotated orientation that is parallel to the intervertebral disc space.

A method of forming a surgical pathway through a side of a patient's body and through a psoas muscle to an intervertebral disc space, comprising:

• providing a dilator;
• positioning the dilator with respect to a plurality of fibers of the psoas muscle;
• traversing the psoas muscle until the dilator spans the intervertebral disc space at the insertion orientation;
• prior to completion of forming the surgical pathway through the side of a patient's body and through the psoas muscle to the intervertebral disc space, using a k-wire extending longitudinally through a center of the dilator, anchoring the dilator at the intervertebral disc space;
• prior to completion of forming the surgical pathway through the side of a patient's body and through the psoas muscle to the intervertebral disc space, providing a pair of blades, and passing the blades proximally-to-distally along the dilator such that the blades are introduced into the vertebral disc space in which the opposing surfaces of the blades are disposed at an insertion orientation that is parallel to the plurality of the fibers of the psoas muscle and at a non-parallel angle to the intervertebral disc space;
• prior to completion of forming the surgical pathway through the side of a patient's body and to the intervertebral disc space, rotating the blades about the k-wire from the insertion orientation that is parallel to the psoas muscle to a rotated orientation that is parallel to the intervertebral disc space;
• and
• prior to completion of forming the surgical pathway through the side of a patient's body and through the psoas muscle to the intervertebral disc space, retracting the blades apart from one another to form the surgical pathway.