Influence of decompression by laminotomy and percutaneous tansforaminal endoscopic surgery on postoperative wound healing, pain intensity, and lumbar function in elderly patients with lumbar spinal stenosis.

Purpose: To compare the wound healing, pain intensity and lumbar function in elderly patients with lumbar spinal stenosis after laminectomy decompression or percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic surgery.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 65 patients who underwent laminotomy and 69 patients who underwent percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic spinal decompression surgery. clinical data analysis, including surgical parameters, complications, postoperative wound healing, pain intensity, lumbar function, and correlation analysis, was performed.

Results: The operative time of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic surgery was significantly shorter than that of laminotomy (70.78±6.80 min vs 128.97±4.70 min, < 0.001), intraoperative blood loss was significantly reduced (94.22± 7.69ml vs 327.68± 6.44ml, < 0.001), postoperative wound healing time and time to get out of bed were significantly shortened, pain was reduced by visual analog scale (3.48±1.11 vs 2.80±1.05, = 0.007), the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score was significantly increased, and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) score showed significantly decrease. The incidence of urinary tract infection and urinary retention was higher after laminotomy. Correlation analysis showed that operative time, intraoperative blood loss, and time to get out of bed were significantly related to prognosis in elderly patients.

Conclusion: Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic surgery is significantly superior to conventional laminectomy decompression in the treatment of elderly lumbar spinal stenosis.