CERVICAL ENDOSCOPIC DISC SURGERY: PRECISE APPROACH FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE DECOMPRESSION

ABSTRACT Objective: Technological advances in recent decades have led to a complexity of choice of the most effective method for treating cervical disc herniations. The idea of removing disc herniations using endoscope techniques is not new, and is successfully used in the treatment of lumbar disc herniations. But in the case of the cervical spine, full endoscopic procedures only started to be performed at the beginning of 2014, by Yang JS and coauthors, and their effectiveness was and still is a matter of controversy. The proposed method of endoscopic portal disc herniation removal was used for the past two years, and its results were compared with the anterior microsurgical approach using a single-level cage implantation. Methods: Twenty-five patients were included in this study, with a comparator group of 25 patients operated by ordinary anterior cervical discectomy with a single-disc fusion. All patients were operated on by the same group of surgeons. Results: During the analysis of VAS data, it was confirmed that the degree of local and radicular pain in the two groups was not significantly different (p > 0.05). According to the Neck Disability Index (NDI) there was a significant difference between the two groups in relation to the endoscopic patient group. Data using the Odom criteria showed significantly better results for the endoscopic group. During the research it was observed that the patients in the endoscopically operated group were discharged from hospital more quickly, after 3 [2; 5] days compared to 5 [4; 6] days in the microsurgery group. Conclusion: The method performed is a safe and reliable alternative to convenient surgical techniques. Level of Evidenced II; Therapeutic study, investigating the results of treatment.