Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 18, 2026
Author Spotlight: Scope of LE-ULBD as a Safe, Effective, and Minimally Invasive Approach to Treat Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Published on: February 9, 2024
Postoperative expansion of dural sac cross-sectional area after unilateral laminotomy for bilateral decompression:
Seok-Won Chung1, Min-Soo Kang1, Yong-Hwan Shin1
1Department of Neurosurgery, Daegu Wooridul Spine Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
Objective:
Dural sac cross-sectional area (DSCSA) is a way to measure the degree of central spinal canal compression. The objective was to investigate the correlation between the expansion ratio of DSCSA after unilateral laminotomy for bilateral decompression (ULBD) and the clinical results for lumbar spinal stenosis.
Methods:
We retrospectively reviewed the clinical data and radiographs of 103 patients who underwent ULBD for symptomatic spinal stenosis in one year. We compared preoperative and postoperative clinical data and DSCSA and evaluated the correlation between clinical and radiographic measurements.
Results:
There was a significant increase of DSCSA after ULBD (p=0.000) and mean expansion ratio of DSCSA was 203.7±147.2%(range -32.9-826.1%). Clinical outcomes, measured by VAS and ODI were improved significantly not only in early postoperative period, but also in the last follow-up. However, there were no statistically significant correlations between the preoperative DSCSA and clinical symptoms, Perioperative expansion ratio of DSCSA and clinical parameters were also not correlated to the improvement of clinical symptoms significantly in both early postoperative phase and last follow-up.
Conclusion:
Our result indicates that the DSCSA itself has a definite limitation to be correlated to the clinical symptoms, and thus meticulous correlation between the clinical presentation and MRI imaging is essential in determination of surgical treatment.
