• Kotryna Veresciagina, Bronius Spakauskas, and Kazys Vytautas Ambrozaitis.
• Clinic of Neurosurgery, Kaunas University of Medicine Hospital, Eiveniu 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. cotryna@gmail.com
• Eur Spine J. 2010 Sep 1; 19 (9): 1450-8.

AbstractThe aim of our study was twofold: firstly, to compare the preoperative and postoperative results at mid-term follow-up periods along with the data of the control group. Secondly, to evaluate the effectiveness among open-discectomy and microdiscectomy surgical groups. In the present study, we investigated a cohort of 100 patients with the lumbar disc herniation causing low back pain compared to 100 subjects of the control group with the non-specific low back pain by applying physical activity, pain scale, Short Form 36 General Health Questionnaire and additional postoperative records of patient's satisfaction and complications level, consumption of analgesics, and return to work status. The quantitative analysis of all questionnaires showed substantial differences in the preoperative and postoperative groups. The best results were achieved at the second year follow-up period. However, there were no statistically significant differences in both the examined surgical subgroups (p > 0.05). In addition, we estimated from moderate to great statistical significance (p < 0.01-0.05) among preoperative and overall postoperative results: PHC and MHC in the SF-36, Oswestry and VAS. The total increased satisfaction, reherniation rate and return to work frequency comprised 40, 9 and 64%, respectively. The analgesics were still indicated for 21% of the patients. The results of the present study suggest of sufficient decompression in both surgical groups, as the health-related quality of life parameters (Oswestry, VAS and SF-36) were defined as clinically improved. Regardless of persisted minor pain in both areas, it remained greater in the low back than in the leg, which should be held for beneficial to decompressive surgery.

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