Looking better: Tiger Woods' prognosis 'very good' according to surgeon
Dr Andrew Hech says American has a 'high chance' of returning to elite competition after undergoing latest back surgery
Tiger Woods has good reason to be optimistic about resolving a nagging back injury that led him to undergo a second back surgery this past week, a leading spinal surgeon said.
Woods, 39, said on his website on Friday that he had undergone a second microdiscectomy surgery similar to one he had on his back in March 2014 and was scuttling the rest of his 2015 playing plans with the hope of returning to golf in early 2016.
Return to play for an elite athlete is around 90 per cent, that they can return to their elite level of competition
"Return to play for an elite athlete is around 90 per cent, that they can return to their elite level of competition," said Dr Andrew Hecht, chief of spine surgery at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. "The prognosis is very good."
Hecht said that in general the risk of recurrence of a herniated disc, which had initially led to a pinched nerve for Woods, was five to 10 per cent for anybody having a microdiscectomy.
Hecht, who works with the New York Jets in the National Football League (NFL) and sits on the NFL brain and spine committee, likened a herniated disc to a squished jam doughnut.
The discs that sit in between the vertebrae that run from the base of the skull all they way down to the pelvis, serve as shock absorbers, he explained.
