Unilateral biportal endoscopy versus percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy for far lateral disc herniation: a comparative study of clinical efficacy and learning curves

Description

Yazhou Li leads an eight-author team comparing two endoscopic operations for far lateral lumbar disc herniation, where a slipped disc pinches a nerve root at the spine's side. The study reviewed 122 patients treated between January 2022 and July 2024 by one surgical team. Of these, 62 received percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy through a single channel, and 60 received unilateral biportal endoscopy, which uses separate viewing and working channels. Everyone was followed for at least twelve months.

Both groups improved markedly in pain and disability. The biportal operations took longer, averaging about 132.77 minutes against 86.61 minutes in clock time, and involved more blood loss, near 270 millilitres against roughly 37 millilitres on average. Long-term pain scores, disability scores, and excellent-or-good outcome rates, 91.9 percent against 93.3 percent, were comparable. A cumulative sum analysis placed the learning curve turning point at 24 cases for the biportal method and 38 for the single-channel one.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13501576