A Clinical Study of Cervical Chemonucleolysis

Jeon, Byung Chan; Seo, Sung Woo

Abstract

For many years chemonucleolysis has been proven effective in the curative treatment of lumbar disc herniation. However, this technique is seldom popular in the herniated cervical disc. For several years microsurgery of the cervical disc has been effective in the treatment of refractory cervicobrachial neuralgia. To compete with this method which has been familiar to neurosurgeons, cervical nucleolysis using chymopapain for 1 year. Twenty two pateints(75%) had excellent outcomes, 5 pateints(15%) considered good while 3 sustained their symptom, but showed decreased intensity. The decision to intervene is made when the radiculagia is recurrent or resistant to medical treatment of several weeks duration, without myelopathy or bony abnormalities such as spondylosis or canal stenosis. The principal advantages of this method are : short stay in the hospital(3 days to 5 days on average), absence of general anesthesia, prompt resumption of previous activities, and long-term preservation of an intervertebral space. As a result, cervical nucleolysis has been shown to be an effective alternative to surgery for cervical soft disc herniations with refractory radicualgia.