Percutaneous discectomy using Onik's method: 3 years' experience

Abstract

A total of 234 patients treated by percutaneous discectomy at 237 levels and followed-up between 11 months and 3 years 4 months showed an overall success rate of about 75%. In a subgroup of 112 of these patients rechecked for a second time, the clinical results remain consistently good even 24 months after surgery. In a special group of 28 patients who complained only of low back pain, percutaneous discectomy achieved a success rate of 85.7%. Complications consisted of one disc infection which cleared without clinical or radiological sequelae (0.26%).

Clinical Results after Percutaneous Automated Lumbar Nucleotomy

“…Unlike our experience, some authors report stable results after nucleotomy (2,4). We have observed a rather high proportion of recurrences (13%).…”

“…With a patient selection according to the criteria of ONIK (27), a majority of authors report clinical results in the same range as for our selected patients with 60 to 90% good results (2,4,12,13,17,19,(21)(22)(23)25,32). However, results similar to those of o~r total material have also been seen (14,18), and In 1 study even very poor results, with a success rate of 37% (30).…”

“…Other factors known to influence the results of treatment of hernias such as smoking habits (16), level of physical activity (36) or whether there was predominance of sciatica or low-back pain prior to treatment (2,13) were recorded retrospectively. Fifty-seven of the patients had predominantly sciatic pain, 49 assessed sciatic pain and low-back pain to be of equal severity, 34 predominantly suffered from low-back pain with some sciatica and 2 had low-back pain only.…”

Posteriorly situated retroperitoneal colon: A study using CT and MRI

“…T h e rarity of this anatomical arrangement is confirmed by the infrequency with which the bowel is punctured during posterior percutaneous procedures (Bonaldi et al, 1991;LeRoy et al, 1985) and by the work of Helms et a]. (1989), who reviewed prone CT studies in 346 patients before percutaneous diskectomy.…”

“…In recent years this variation has attracted attention because of increasing interest in percutaneous renal (Reznek and Talner, 1984) and vertebral (Bonaldi et al, 1991) procedures. A posteriorly situated colon may be damaged if too posterolateral an approach is used (LeRoy et al, 1985).…”