OBJECTIVE The microendoscopic discectomy (MED) technique was initially developed in 1997 to treat herniated lumbar disc disease. Since then, thousands of cases have been successfully performed at more than 500 institutions. This article discusses the technical aspects of this procedure and presents a consecutive case series. METHODS A total of 150 consecutive patients underwent MED. MED is pe...

Peter Whitfield Whitfield is ACNRs Neurosurgery editor. He is a Consultant and Associate Professor in Neurosurgery at the South West Neurosurgery Centre, Plymouth. His clinical interests are wide, including neurovascular conditions, head injury, stereotactic radiosurgery, image guided tumour surgery and lumbar microdiscectomy. He is an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and t...

Great vessel injury is a rare but well-known complication of lumbar disc surgery, which may result in acute or fatal outcomes of delayed diagnosis. Thus, early detection and proper management is vital. The authors report a case of retroperitoneal hemorrhage with arteriovenous fistula and pseudoaneurysm after lumbar microdiscectomy. The patient was successfully managed by endovascular interventi...

recipients,24 but 46% of patients with other tumours die of their malignancy or because of organ rejection after withdrawal of immunosuppression to prevent spread of the tumour.4 Survival of transplant recipients with cancer is similar to that of those without tumours for the first eight years after transplantation but thereafter declines rapidly.'" Controlled multicentre studies (organised per...

BACKGROUND The long-term outcome after lumbar microdiscectomy (LMD) may be affected by low back pain (LBP) and segmental instability, the determinants of which remain unclear. We sought to analyze the interaction between clinical, functional, and radiological variables and their impact on patient outcome. METHODS All patients who underwent LMD in 2004-2005 were invited to participate in this ...

AIM To compare the safety and efficacy of spinal anesthesia (SA) in patients undergoing lumbar microdiscectomy (LM). MATERIAL AND METHODS We evaluated 180 patients who underwent LM between 1 January 2012 and 5 July 2013. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and pre-, intra-, and postoperative information was determined from the patients' medical records. RESULTS Total anesthetic times were lo...