William D. Zelenty, MD

Dr. Zelenty is a board certified spine surgeon at HSS with special expertise in diagnosing and treating a range of spinal disorders including degenerative, traumatic, congenital, and developmental conditions affecting the cervical, thoracic, and lumbosacral spine. Dr. Zelenty not only has a busy clinical practice but continues to be engaged in research focused on less-invasive techniques, post-operative pain management strategies, motion sparing technology, and adult deformity. Dr. Zelenty has ample experience using advanced surgical techniques and technologies including minimally invasive and endoscopic surgery, lateral and anterior access surgery, computer navigation and augmented reality, and robotic surgery.

Dr. Zelenty was an honours program student and recipient of the Presidential Scholarship Award at The George Washington Unversity where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in biophysics. He then worked for Memoral Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center performing research on novel pharmacologics undergoing phase I clinical trials with the FDA prior to entering medical school. Dr. Zelenty received his medical degree from NYU School of Medicine before receiving his orthopaedic training at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. Dr. Zelenty completed his subspecialty training in spine surgery here at HSS, but also had the unique opportunity to learn from thought-leaders around the globe including with colleagues in Tokyo and Berlin.

Dr. Zelenty firmly believes in patient education and a shared approach to critical decision making when it comes to spine surgery. Each patient is afforded the time and follow-up needed to feel informed and confident about their condition and treatment options.

When not engaged in his clinical practice or research Dr. Zelenty enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters here in Manhattan.
 

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Departments

Special Expertise

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis
Ankylosing spondylitis
Atlantoaxial instability, subluxation
Cervical spondylosis
Cervical radiculopathy
Cervical deformity
Congenital cervical spine anomalies (e.g. Klippel-Feil Syndrome)
Disc herniation
Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis (DISH)
Kyphosis (deformity including Scheuermann's Kyphosis)
Lumbar radiculopathy
Lumbar stenosis
Myelopathy (including cervical and thoracic)
Rheumatological disease of the spine
Scoliosis (congenital, developmental, and acquired deformities)
Spinal deformity
Spondylolysis
Spondylolisthesis

Procedures

Decompression surgery of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine including: laminectomy, minimally invasive laminectomy, laminotomy, laminoforaminotomy, microdiscectomy, corpectomy and cervical laminoplasty.

Fusion procedures of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbosacral spine including: posterior spinal fusion with instrumentation (cervical, thoracic and lumbar), posterior lumbar interbody fusion, transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion, anterior lumbar interbody fusion, lateral lumbar interbody fusion, anterior cervical discectomy and fusion.

Deformity surgery for adult and pediatric spinal deformities including cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spinal deformity. Techniques utilized include: pedicle subtraction osteotomy, Ponte/Smith-Peterson osteotomy, and vertebral column resection/corpectomy/vertebrectomy.

Motion preserving surgeries including cervical and lumbar disc replacement surgery.

Minimally invasive, 3D computer navigated and robotic surgery