Neurosurgeon, Orthopaedic Surgeon in Boulder, Colorado (CO)

Dr. Villavicencio treats all types of brain and spinal disorders. He is one of only a handful of spine surgeons in the country that has dual training in both neurological surgery and orthopedic spine surgery. He initially focuses on conservative management of the patient. If surgery is necessary, Dr. Villavicencio utilizes state of the art minimally invasive surgical techniques such as intraoperative three-dimensional fluoroscopy-based computerized tomography guidance for percutaneous kyphoplasty reduction of vertebral fractures. This and other techniques were developed by Dr. Villavicencio himself. For more information on the original description of this and other techniques, seehttp://www.aans.org/education/journal/neurosurgical/mar05/18-3-3.pdf

Patients who previously underwent several hour surgeries and several day hospitalizations can now sometimes be treated as outpatients. He is applying these techniques to all aspects of spinal disorders, including those involving complex instrumentation and deformity correction as well as endoscopic spinal surgery.

Dr. Villavicencio has published more than 50 papers and is the lead investigator in several ongoing prospective randomized trials involving spinal surgery. He is currently the regional primary investigator for the multi-center FDA clinical trial evaluating the MAVERICK (TM) Artificial Disc and was also involved in the multi-center FDA clinical trial for the Charite SB-III artificial disc. Dr. Villavicencio also treats patients with spinal tumors using the only CyberKnife radiosurgical system in Colorado. This non-invasive neurosurgical technique utilizes focused high-energy radiation to attack and kill tumors of the brain and spine.