Endoscopic discectomy in pediatric and juvenile lumbar disc herniations

Most herniated lumbar discs in children and adolescents respond to conservative treatment, but some young patients with persistent low back and neurological symptoms do not respond to noninvasive treatment and require operative treatment. Because the long-term results of disc surgery depend not only on the disc disease itself but also on the degree of surgical trauma, disc herniations in children and adolescents should be treated with minimally invasive procedures. We report our experience with four young patients aged 8-17 years with contained or small noncontained lumbar disc herniations who were treated by percutaneous endoscopic discectomy (PED). The clinical results were good to excellent in all four cases, with follow-up of 1 to 5 years. There were no complications, and the operation was tolerated well by the young patients. We recommend percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy in patients with contained or small uncontained disc herniations who do not respond to conservative treatment.