MED Versus Open Lumbar Disectomy For Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Meta-analysis

Objective To compare the surgical outcome and investigate the clinical value between microendoscopy discectomy and opened lumbar disectomy in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation.Methods We searched PubMed, EMbase, SCI, The Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China Journal Full Text Database, Chinese Medical Association Journals, and references of the included studies up to March 2010. Using the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines, all randomized controlled trials comparing opened lumbar disectomy and microendoscopy discectomy were systematically reviewed. Data were extracted and methodological quality were evaluated by two reviewers independently with designed extraction form. The Cochrane Collaboration's RevMan 5.0.1 software was used for data analyses.Results A total of 12 studies involving 1748 patients were included. The results of meta-analyses showed that compared microendoscopy discectomy with opened lumbar disectomy, No statistically significant differences were found between two disectomies in the treatment outcome and the operation time; microendoscopy discectomy are superior to opened lumbar disectomy in intraoperative blood loss,the time in hospital and the time out of bed after operration.Conclusion Microendoscopy discectomy is ideal minimally invasive surgical method to treat lumbar disc herniation.