Convened under the auspicious of esteemed endorsers - ISTA

Saturday, October 9, 2010, 16:00-16:50Session B22: Arthroplasty- Getting it Right!Nucleoplasty an Innovative Minimaly Invasive Methode for Treatment ofLumbar Radicular Pain*Samir Shnayien - Orthopaedic Clinic - Linz Am Rhein, Germany*Email: S.shnayien@t-online.deNucleoplasty an innovative minimally invasive method for treatment of lumbar radicular painBy S. Shnayien, MD, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Linz, GermanyAbstract:Background and Objective:In industrialized societies, the prevalence of radicular low back pain has exploded in recentyears. Lumbar disc prolaps, protrusion, or extrusion account for less than 5% of all low backproblems, but are the most common causes of nerve root pain and surgical interventions. Theprimary rationale for any form of surgery for disc prolaps is to relieve nerve root irritation orcompression due to herniated disc material. The primary modality of surgical treatmentcontinues to be either open or microdiscectomy, but several alternative techniques includingNucleoplasty. It provokes ablation of the nucleus of the disk by a controlled thermal effectproduced by radiofrequency. Nucleoplasty is minimally invasive treatment aimed at removingnuclear material and lowering intradiscal pressure and decompressing through coblation needleinserted percutaneously into the nucleus of intervertebral discs. This paper will show a 3 yearsexperience with 110 cases with lumbar radicular pain secondary to a disc protrusion thatunderwent Nucleoplasty as their secondary therapy.Methods:Included in this series were 110 patients with significant lumbar radicular pain, resistant tointerventional therapy done before hand like fluoroscopically guided spinal transforaminalepidural injections or sacral injections with steroids. These cases were done under localanaesthesia with short analgesia and stand by monitoring.Results:In the overall cohort, the average Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) pain score decreasedfile:///E|/ISTA2010-Abstracts.htm[12/7/2011 3:15:47 PM]