Clinical Outcome of Full-endoscopic Interlaminar Discectomy for Single-level Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Minimum of 5-year Follow-up.

BACKGROUND Full-endoscopic interlaminar discectomy (FEID) is widely applied for the treatment of lumbar disc herniation (LDH) and satisfactory short-term outcomes have been achieved. However, the long-term evaluation for this technique is still lacking, especially the comparison between FEID and microendoscopic discectomy (MED). OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical outcome of FEID technique in comparison with MED for single-level LDH with a minimum of 5-year follow-up. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING Inpatient surgery center. METHODS A total of 152 patients with single-level LDH located at either L4-L5 or L5-S1 who underwent either FEID or MED from August 2008 to April 2011 at our hospital were enrolled in this study. General parameters including operative time, length of hospital stay, mean time to return to work, complications, and recurrences were recorded. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using visual analog scale (VAS) for low back and leg pain, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) for functional assessment, and modified MacNab criteria for patient satisfaction. RESULTS At the final follow-up, the VAS of leg and back pain decreased from 7.6 ± 1.6 and 3.1 ± 2.2 points preoperatively to 1.6 ± 1.2 and 1.7 ± 0.9 at the final follow-up, respectively (P < 0.05). The ODI score was 69.5% ± 10.5% preoperatively, and declined to 21.8% ± 7.0% at the final follow-up (P < 0.05). VAS, ODI, and modified MacNab criteria of the FEID group were improved compared to the control group though there were no statistically significant differences between the 2 groups. LIMITATIONS This was a retrospective study with a relatively small sample size. Additionally, this study contained only clinical outcomes, without long-term radiological outcomes. CONCLUSIONS The application of FEID achieved similar satisfactory long-term clinical outcomes for the surgical treatment of LDH as MED. However, compared with MED, FEID exhibits advantages including less operation time, shorter hospital stay, and faster postoperative recovery.Key words: Lumbar disc herniation, full-endoscopic interlaminar discectomy, microendoscopic disectomy, long-term.