Analysis of Operative Treatment and the Outcome of the Lumbar Disc Surgery in Lumbar Disc Herniation

A herniated lumbar intervertebral disc has been the most common cause of low back pain and sciatica since Mixter and Barr reported it in 1934. Our methods of treatment were the conservative treatment and the excision of the herniated disc for a limited number of carefully selected cases. The results of disc surgery relate to a number of factors, unquestionably the most important being patient selectivity. We emplopyed Finneson's lumbar disc surgery predictive score card to determine the relationship between patient selection and the outcome of lumbar disc surgery in operative cases. This report is to give a clinical review of 46 cases of the herniated disc upon which surgical removal were performed at Eul-Ji General Hospital from March 1981 to July 1982. The results were obtained as follows: 1. The most common age group were 21 to 40 year old. 2. In 46 surgically treated cases, 34 cases were male (74%) and 12 cases were female (26%). 3. The bulging of disc was found in 25 cases and the ruptured disc was found in 14 cases. The most common site of the lesion was L4-5 intervertebral disc with 30 cases (65%) and the next L5-Sl intervertebral disc with 10 cases (22%). 4. The outcomes of lumbar disc surgery were evaluated at follow-up as good in 77 per cent, fair in 11 per cent, marginal in 7 per cent and poor in 5 per cent of the patients. 5. The predictive scores of each result category were averaged and were as follows; Good: 77.1, Fair: 67.3, Marginal: 58.0, Poor: 40.0 6. The average predictive scores of each result category fell within the anticipated parameters of the score card. 7. The score card may be utilized as reliable system for presurgical patient selection.