Wooridul Spine Hospital (Seoul, South Korea)

World’s Largest Spine & Joint Specialized Hospital – Wooridul Hospital.

Wooridul Hospital is the world’s largest spine and joint specialized hospital. Since its establishment in 1982, it has been focusing on the spine and joint field for 30 years. With its strength in “Minimally Invasive Surgery Technique”, it has 10 network hospitals in Korea and 3 in different countries; all in all 13 network hospitals all over the world.

Based on the “Patient First” philosophy, Wooridul Hospital has investigated and developed an advanced spinal surgical technique, the Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (MISS), that preserves as much of the normal disc tissues as possible and meets patients’ expectations for minimal scarring and fast recovery with reduced complications.

These results were achieved by the integrated cooperation of a multi-disciplinary team including: neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, internal medicine physicians, rehabilitation physicians, and thoracic and general surgeons. This integrated team, in addition to over 1,200 employees of Wooridul Hospital, has contributed to the health and welfare of the patients around the world. As a world leading spine hospital, Wooridul Hospital will continue to do its best to give patients hope and a better quality of life.

Researching and Teaching Hospital

For several years, all medical staffs in Wooridul Hospital has been holding “Friday Academic Conferences” in which they gather together every Friday morning and discuss about each other’s treatment cases and share up-to-date medical technology. Not only the local network hospitals but also the prestigious hospitals overseas are connected through real-time video system and conduct Live Surgery, Journal Review, Pre-operative case Discussion, Post-operative case review, Critical patient advocacy, Meeting review, Subject review, etc. in order to share Wooridul’s skills and values.

Moreover, Wooridul has published SCI 260 journals and written 20 textbooks (74 chapters) for medical doctors. Ceaseless R&D has developed minimally invasive surgery techniques and implants like artificial ligaments, intervertebral implants. Also, Wooridul has continued to exchange academic ideas with medically developed countries through various local and international conferences.

Surgical Treatment

The advanced spinal surgical technique developed by Wooridul Hospital is bloodless and minimally invasive to save normal disc tissue. Short term admission, small incision, minimal scars, and reduced complications, this is what they are doing for patients.

Accurate Diagnosis is essential before making a decision for surgery. The hospital accomplishes high success rate of treatment with 5 times confirmation:

1st STEP
Patient's Symptom, Diagnosis and X-ray exam (Success Rate 50%)
2nd STEP
MRI exam (Success Rate 60%)
- Soft tissue, Disc, Nerve
3rd STEP
CT exam (Success Rate 70%)
- Vertebra, Ligament Calcification, Spinal Joint
4th STEP
Non-Invasive Myelogram MR exam (Success Rate 80%)
- Neurography
5th STEP
Spinal Nerve Function Test (More than 90%)
- Injection Therapy
- DITI (Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging)
- Provocation Discography
- EMG (Electromyography)
- Medx, Centaur Test
- 3-Dimensional Motion Analysis
- Spinal Mouse

The Wooridul specialists do not think surgery is always the best way to treat patients, so they consider the patient conditions first, and then provide step-by-step treatments for saving normal disc tissue and other adjacent structures.

Spine Surgical Procedure

Cervical:

Percutaneous Endoscopic Cervical Discectomy (PECD)
Transcorporeal Foraminotomy, Laminetomy
Cervical Laminoplasty
Artificial Disc Replacement (ADR)
Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF)
Cervical corpectomy

Lumbar:

Percutaneous Endoscopic Lumbar Discectomy (PELD)
Open Laser-assisted Discectomy (OLD)
Laminectomy
Interspinous Locker Fixation (ILF)
Total Disc Replacement (TDR)
Anterior/Transverse Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) with Percutaneous Posterior Fixation (PPF)

Thoracic:

Percutaneous Endoscopic Thoracic Discectomy (PETD)
Thoracotomy
Laminectomy
Posterior Fusion
Scoliosis
Posterior correction and fusion
Osteoporosis
Kyphoplasty
Pervutaneous Vertebroplasty (PVP)

Joint Surgical Procedure

Computer Assisted Navigation:

Orthopedic Clinic

Shoulder:

Orthopedic Shoulder Clinic
Frozen Shoulder
Shoulder Tendon Tear
Shoulder impingement syndrome
Total Shoulder Arthroplasty

Hip:

Orthopedic Hip Clinic
Avascular necrosis of the femoral head
Hip joint osteoarthritis

Knee:

Orthopedic Knee Clinic
Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction surgery
High Tibial Osteotomy
Total Knee Arthroplasty

Foot:

Plantar Fasciitis
Hallux Valgus
Chronic ankle joint instability
Ankle arthritis

Conservative Treatment

Hospital provides conservative treatments like:

Pain Scrambler MC-5A Scrambler Treatment
Epidural Neurolysis
Physiotherapy
Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy

Wooridul International Patients Center

Since January of 2006, ‘Wooridul International Patients Center’ (WIPC) provided medical service especially for foreign patients. The WIPC has a program dedicated to provide a number of special services to assist international patients and to ensure that they receive the highest quality medical care throughout their stay at Wooridul Hospital. They have interpreters of different language who can be there for foreign patients’ need (Russian, English, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, etc.) They do their best to inform advanced medical treatments and technologies all over the world as a world-leading spine hospital.

WIPC’s ONE-STOP Service: