[Surgical treatment of lumbar disc hernias in athletes]

In a 7-year period (1988-1995) a series of 55 patients was surgically treated at our Department for lumbar disk herniation following a certain sports activity, i.e. sports injury. The above number accounts for 2% of the total number of lumbar disk patients operated upon at our Department. The majority of patients in our series were amateur athletes, whereas a few of them were active or professional athletes. The most common cause of disk herniation among our patients was playing soccer (13 cases), which is followed by basketball (8), field athletics (7), tennis (6) and handball (4). In most cases our surgical method of choice was flavectomy (interlaminectomy). Most commonly seen intraoperative finding was intervertebral disk extrusion. In some athletes the onset of symptoms was due to a change of their usual sports activity, for example a tennis player who was injured in skiing. We believe that the onset of disk herniation in athletes is a consequence of numerous micro traumas of the intervertebral disk which are further compounded by the syndrome of overstraining. In the case of a positive indication, surgical treatment leads to a faster recovery in professional athletes.