Single level discectomy with and without disc prosthesis: A comparative study of 114 patients

Low back and leg pain due to lumbar discal hernia (LDH) is an important health issue. Current evidences support surgery in carefully selected patients who have failed conservative treatment and do not exhibit any psychosocial overlay. However, as known, sometimes it may be still very difficult to normalize the life qualities of patients for long times. Now different surgical methods for LDH are in use with new technological materials. One of them is lumbar disc prosthesis. In this study, the radiological and clinical effects of using lumbar disc prosthesis were evaluated with comparing patients underwent simple lumbar microdsicectomy. The purpose of this study is to reveal whether inserting the disc prosthesis into the intervertebral distance after lumbar microdiscectomy is beneficial or not both radiologically and clinically.

A total of 114 patients were analyzed; the first cohort consisted of 57 patients who received a lumbar discectomy at a single level along with the implantation of a disc prosthesis and the second consisted of 57 patients only received a lumbar discectomy at a single level. These 2 groups were studied by comparing the disc space on the level of carried out operations with pain scales, foramen diameters of coming about related roots preoperatively and postoperatively at 3 years.

One of the significant results of the implementation of the disc prosthesis is fulfilment of a healthy disc height again after microdiscectomy due to LDH. We concluded that fulfilment of a healthy disc height with lumbar disc prosthesis was clinically beneficial for patients underwent microdiscectomy.

Based on the results obtained in this study, it can be concluded that the implantation of a disc prosthesis in appropriate patients is more favorable regarding pain and spinal physiology when compared to simple microdiscectomy.