CLINICAL STUDY ON NUCLEOPLASTY - PRELIMINARY RESULTS.

Introduction: Nucleoplasty, the most advanced form of percutaneous discectomy developed to date, has important advantages as compared to other surgical methods: minimal tissue trauma, faster recovery time, local anesthetic, short duration and a painless rehabilitation period. Aim: Since the method is newly adopted in Romania, the aim of our study is to centralize the benefits and the side effects of the method in order to spread it on national level. Material and methods: A 12-month prospective, nonrandomized, human clinical study was started in the Neurology Department of the Emergency University Hospital, Bucharest, covering one year time interval (December 2006 - December 2007). The study included 60 patients presenting lumbar pathology at more than one level. The used method was the Dekompressor, a highly efficient method for removal of intervertebral disc nucleus pulposus under fluoroscopic control. Periprocedural the patients received antibiotics treatment. Results: Up to now there were no procedure related complications. 89% of patients reported improvement of the simptomatology with almost 60% the first 6 months postprocedural while 92% of patients were satisfied with results for 12 months, reporting the reduction of the analgesic intake. In 4% of cases no benefit was reported. The follow-up of the patients is still on-going. Conclusion: The results of our study confirm that nucleoplasty provides the therapeutic benefits of earlier percutaneous disc decompression techniques without many side effects. Clinical results are very promising when the inclusion criteria are strictly respected and therefore we encourage the patients to expect rapid and sustained pain reduction after the procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]