**10. Conclusion**

The presence of minimally invasive spine surgery techniques in all practice settings has greatly increased over the past decade and will likely continue to rise in popularity due to patient requests/perceptions, marketability of MIS procedures, improving technology, and increased surgeon comfort. As MIS spine procedures become a standardized part of spine training, it will be important to continue monitoring the long-term advantages and disadvantages of procedures such as the XLIF compared to conventional approaches. Far more research is needed to determine the role of MIS techniques in a spine surgeon's armamentarium and whether specific surgery-related risks are justified by improved surgical and patient-reported outcomes. In the meantime, spine surgeons offering MIS procedures will need to provide transparent information regarding these surgeries to their patients, setting the expectation that these newer techniques may not necessarily result in superior outcomes compared to classic approaches.
