STITCHLESS Percutaneous Endoscopic Cervical Discectomy: Are We Moving Towards Day Care Discectomy Procedure?

STITCHLESS percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy s[PECD] is safe, precise, targeted, and a complete endoscopic procedure to treat soft cervical disc herniation with unilateral radiculopathy. It allows direct visualization of herniated fragment and its removal, inspection of decompressed nerve root in an awake and aware patient. It reduces the risk related to general anesthesia and to the neurological structures. However, all the patients treated with PECD can be candidates for anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). ACDF requires a longer period of stay, expense, and more risk to neurological structures and ultimately loss of the disc space by fusion.

Twenty consecutively treated patients by sPECD over a period of 2 years with soft cervical disc herniation and unilateral radiculopathy were included in the study. PECD enables removal of offending fragment under vision and irrigation and ablation of inflammation with few complications. All patients were followed for minimum of 6 months with visual analog score (VAS) and neck disability index (NDI).

All treated patients had a good outcome in terms of pain relief (VAS) and functional recovery (NDI). One patient had episodes of cough lying in the supine position and another patient had transient hoarseness of voice, (both recovered).

Potential benefits of sPECD include safety as it is done under local anesthesia, smaller incision, short hospitalization, fewer complications, avoidance of fusion, preservation of segmental motion, preventing the adjacent segment degeneration, and avoidance of the risk related to the hardware (nonunion and pseudarthrosis). sPECD is an effective treatment modality for soft cervical disc herniation.