Percutaneous discectomy

1. In patients with symptomatic lumbar disc herniations contained within the interspace, the percutaneous automated discectomy is a reasonable option to open operative procedures. The results appear to be comparable in either case. 2. The procedure is done under local anesthesia, thus avoiding a general anesthetic, and has a shorter and less painful postoperative recovery period. 3. The complications and morbidity from the percutaneous technique appear to be significantly less than the open surgical techniques. 4. Proper selection of surgical candidates is extremely important in any surgical approach to the treatment of lumbar degenerative disc disease. Patients who have had a prior lumbar surgery (or "redo" cases) do not appear to do well with percutaneous discectomy. 5. As demonstrated in many other studies, the workers' compensation/liability patients did not fare as well as "standard" patients. 6. Since the original study, we have performed an additional 50 automated percutaneous discectomies and 52 laser discectomies (totaling 212 cases in all). 7. Although the sample size is small, and our experience is limited, patients treated with laser discectomy appear to be experiencing a higher percentage of favorable results than patients treated with automated percutaneous discectomy.