This is a retrospective review on 441 consecutive patients who underwent micro endoscopic lumbar discectomy or decompression from a single surgeon.  At 5 years,  there was  a 89% followup rate.

The reoperation rate was 12.4%.

7% of the had additional surgery secondary to recurrent herniations. A .76% had additional surgery secondary to epidural hematoma. Almost 5% had surgery secondary to instability, or continued pain despite decompression of a scoliotic level.

The Authors cautioned against over decompression leading to instability , and agreed that decompression in the face of scoliosis may lead to additional surgery.

The discussions about minimally invasive endoscopic surgery, and the 5 year results are consistent with most data concerning microdiscectomy surgery.

This is a retrospective review of one Surgeon’s experience. While we cannot make broad generalizations about the results, the Authors did review the results, and found similar rates of reoperations compared to standard discectomy studies. The results were not worse. The rates of reoperation remained low, and the know prior risks of instability, and scoliosis still became a factor in the reoperation rates.