Publication:

Retrospective study of minimally invasive surgery verses open laminectomy or laminectomy with diskectomy

Background Minimally invasive spine surgeries (MIS) are often considered superior to their open counterparts in view of smaller incisions, reduced blood loss, less post-operative pain and less hospital stay. In this study, we compared the clinical outcome of MIS and open procedure of lumbar laminectomy/discectomy. The objective of this study was to compare clinical outcome between the MIS and open procedure of lumbar laminectomy/discectomy.

Methods This was a retrospective study conducted at Government medical college, Kottayam, Kerala, India where we studied the patients who underwent MIS and open laminectomy/laminectomy with discectomy during the period January 2018 to January 2020.

Results We studied a total of 200 patients, among which 60% were males with a mean age of 50.58 years and 40% were females with a mean age of 53.59 years, 45.5% had L5 S1 IVDP, 30% had L4/5 IVDP, and 24.5% had L4/5 lumbar canal stenosis, 75.5% underwent laminectomy with discectomy and the rest (24.5%) underwent laminectomy with foraminotomy, 60% underwent open surgery and 40% underwent MIS.

Conclusions MIS was superior to its open analog in terms of intra operative blood loss as well as hospital stay. But open surgeries required less operation time, less C arm exposure, had better pain control and functional outcome and less recurrence in our study.