J Korean Orthop Assoc.  2002 Dec;37(6):781-786.

Survivor Ship Analysis of Lumbar Microdiscectomy

• Lee CS
• Chung SS
• Park MS
• Chung KH
• Kim JH

Abstract

PURPOSE: To analyze the post-operative clinical results of lumbar microdiscectomy with respect to time, and to evaluate the causes of fail-ure by survivor ship analysis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The clinical results of 162 patients were evaluated using MacNab's criteria and the survival rate was analyzed by using Kaplan-Meier survivor ship analysis. Several factors suspected of influencing survival were evaluated.
RESULTS
Survival was 93.7% at 12 months after the operation, and showed annual decrements to reach 84.7% at 60 months but did not change thereafter until the final follow up. There were total 18 failed cases and the failure rate after 5 years was 0%. Statistically significant factors influencing the survival rate were, the type and level of disc herniation. The causes of early failure, which occurred within 12 months of surgery, were usually due to residual or recurrent radiating pain, whereas the major cause of late failure, which occurred after 12 months, was usually residual back pain.
CONCLUSION
The failure rate was relatively high during the early post-operative period, but this decreased with time. Since long-term survival was relatively high, lumbar microdiscectomy could be considered an effective and satisfactory surgical technique.

Keyword

Lumbar microdiscectomy; Survivor ship analysis

MeSH Terms

Back Pain
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Ships*
Survival Rate
Survivors*