Long-term outcome after microendoscopic diskectomy for lumbar disk herniation: a prospective clinical study with a 5-year follow-up.

Background: Several authors have reported results obtained with the microendoscopic diskectomy (MED) technique, but the long-term outcome has not been described. This report summarizes our clinical experience with the lumbar MED technique with a long-term follow-up period.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of the MED for lumbar disk herniation and to report long-term outcome and complications (5-year follow-up).

Multicentric and prospective study of the Summit cementless stem.

We assess early clinical and radiographic results of a multicentric and prospective study of 485 Summit porous-coated stems implanted in 5 hospitals. Of the patients, 171 had a hydroxyapatite (HA) coating and 314 had non-HA porous-coated stems. The mean follow-up was 4.

Midterm outcome after microendoscopic decompressive laminotomy for lumbar spinal stenosis: 4-year prospective study.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of radicular decompression in lumbar spinal stenosis using a microendoscopic technique.

Methods: This was a longitudinal prospective study of 50 patients with a diagnosis of lumbar spinal stenosis who were treated by microendoscopic decompression using an 18-mm METRx tubular retractor according to the METRx technique (Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Memphis, TN). Twenty of the patients had an additional disc prolapse, and a microendoscopic discectomy was associated with decompressive laminectomy.