Percutaneous cervical laser diskectomy, thermoannuloplasty, and thermonucleoplasty; comparable results without surgery.

CONCLUSIONS: For patients with pain alone/mild radiculopathy and "contained" discs on MR, three MIS percutaneous anterior cervical disc operations resulted in 80-90%+ improvement. Notably, similar 80-90%+ improvement was observed for comparable/more neurologically impaired patients with even larger cervical disc herniations treated nonsurgically. With such findings, where is the "value added" for these three MIS cervical operations? PMID: 28713631 [PubMed]
Source: Surgical Neurology International - Category: Neurosurgery Tags: Surg Neurol Int Source Type: research