Short-term and long-term revision rates after lumbar spine discectomy versus laminectomy: a population-based cohort study

Background/objective Degenerative diseases of the lumbar spine were managed with discectomy or laminectomy. This study aimed to compare these two surgical treatments in the postoperative revision rates.Design A population-based cohort study from analysis of a healthcare database.Setting Data were ga...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yao-Chun Hsu, Feng-Chen Kao, Chang-Bi Wang, Yuan-Kun Tu, Pao-Hsin Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMJ Publishing Group 2018-07-01
Series:BMJ Open
Online Access:https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/7/e021028.full
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Summary:Background/objective Degenerative diseases of the lumbar spine were managed with discectomy or laminectomy. This study aimed to compare these two surgical treatments in the postoperative revision rates.Design A population-based cohort study from analysis of a healthcare database.Setting Data were gathered from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD).Participants We enrolled 16 048 patients (4450 women and 11 598 men) with a mean age of 40.34 years who underwent lumbar discectomy or laminectomy for the first time between 1 January 1997 and 31 December 2007. All patients were followed up for 5 years or until death.Results Revision rate within 3 months of the index surgery was significantly higher in patients who underwent discectomy (2.75%) than in those who underwent laminectomy (1.18%; p<0.0001). This difference persisted over the first year following the index surgery (3.38% vs 2.57%). One year afterwards, the revision rates were similar between the discectomy (9.75%) and laminectomy (9.69%) groups. The final spinal fusion surgery rates were also similar between the groups (11.25% vs 12.08%).Conclusion The revision rate after lumbar discectomy was higher than that after laminectomy within 1 year of the index surgery. However, differences were not identified between patient groups for the two procedures with respect to long-term revision rates and the proportion of patients who required final spinal fusion surgery.
ISSN:2044-6055