• Dimitrios Erginousakis, Dimitrios K Filippiadis, Aikaterini Malagari, Athanasios Kostakos, Elias Brountzos, Nikolaos L Kelekis, and Alexis Kelekis.
• 2nd Radiology Department, University General Hospital Attikon, 1 Rimini St, Haidari 12462, Athens, Greece.
• Radiology. 2011 Aug 1;260(2):487-93.

PurposeTo compare short-, intermediate-, and long-term functional results concerning pain reduction and mobility improvement between conservative therapy and percutaneous disk decompression (PDD) in patients with intervertebral disk herniations.Materials And MethodsThe study received approval from both the university ethics panel and the institutional review board. Patients provided informed consent for the study. Over the past 4 years, two randomized groups of 31 patients with sciatica due to intervertebral disk herniation were prospectively studied and compared with the t test. The control group underwent conservative therapy (administration of analgesics, antiinflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants, and physiotherapy) for 6 weeks. The decompression group underwent fluoroscopically guided PDD. Pain reduction and mobility improvement were recorded at 3-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up on a numeric visual scale (NVS) (range, 0-10).ResultsThe control group had a mean pain score of 6.9 NVS units ± 1.9 prior to conservative therapy. This was reduced to 0.9 NVS units ± 2.0 3 months after therapy; however, it increased to 4.0 NVS units ± 3.4 at 12-month follow-up and further increased to 4.0 NVS units ± 3.4 at 24-month follow-up. The decompression group had a mean pain score of 7.4 NVS units ± 1.4 prior to PDD. This was reduced to 3.0 NVS units ± 2.4 at 3-month follow-up and further reduced to 1.7 NVS units ± 2.4 at 12-month follow-up and 1.6 NVS units ± 2.5 at 24-month follow-up. No complications were noted.ConclusionWhen compared with conservative therapy, PDD shows improved amelioration of symptoms at 12- and 24-month follow-up.© RSNA, 2011.

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