Microsurgical approach to lumbar synovial cysts. Technical notes

Intraspinal extradural synovial cysts are quite common in the lumbar spine. With respect to clinical presentation and surgical treatment, juxta-facet cysts (ganglion and synovial cysts) share identical characteristics and results. Nowadays, current treatment strategies of intraspinal juxta-facet cysts continue to inspire controversy regarding appropriate surgical approaches, and include many technical options. The purpose of this report is to illustrate the advantage of minimally invasive approaches in 3 cases of lumbar synovial cysts. We performed a small flavectomy in the 1st case, a transarticular partial facectomy, followed by etherologous bone graft fusion in the 2nd case, and a flavectomy and partial facectomy in the 3rd case. In our cases, a microsurgical approach to lumbar synovial cysts yielded to complete excision of the lesions and excellent pain relief, with early mobilization and hospital discharge of the patients. In our opinion, minimally invasive approaches and microsurgical excision of lumbar juxta-facet cysts are advantageous over conventional lumbar laminectomy because they reduce later development of segmental instability at the operative level, and therefore a less invasive strategy for intraspinal synovial cysts removal should be recommended.