[The value of early postoperative CT study after lumbar intervertebral disk surgery]

The changes of the early intraspinal conditions few days after an operation of a lumbar disc herniation are little known. We, therefore, examined these operation areas by CT on a representative group of 256 patients. Besides the "common" findings, such as seroma, one must classify conditions such as haematomas, isolated bone fragments and/or residual disc tissue as "unusual" changes. The CT findings are correlated with clinical symptoms. We conducted CT and clinical follow-up studies in 91 patients several weeks later. All patients showed epidural scars of very different intensity. The comparison between early postoperative findings and the controls documents the high accuracy of the interpretation of the early postoperative states seen by CT. Therefore, it is possible to give hints for the indication for early postoperative CT examinations, for the prognosis as well as for the technique for a safe operative procedure.