Abstract
To report on intra- and perioperative complications associated with working channel endoscopic spine surgery.
This study is a retrospective chart review of a multi-institutional patient cohort operated on by surgeons within the Endoscopic Spine Study Group between May 2010 and June 2017.
Our study cohort consists of a total of 553 consecutive cases with an average age of 57 years. The most common procedure was an endoscopic discectomy (n = 377, 68%) followed by foraminotomy (n = 156, 28.2%), unilateral laminotomy for bilateral decompression (n = 55, 9.9%), and lateral recess decompression (n = 29, 5.2%). Overall, the rate of intra- and perioperative complications was 2.7%. There were 3 durotomies (0.54%), 2 epidural hematomas (0.36%), 2 patients developed a complex pain disorder (0.36%), 4 recurrent disc herniations within 3 months (1.1%), 4 systemic complications (1.1%), and no wound infections. No risk factors were identified with regards to age, sex, approach, or number of segments.
Endoscopic spine surgery is associated with a favorable rate of intra- and perioperative complications compared with reported rates of minimally invasive ortraditional open spine surgeries. Our report proposes safe and effective strategies for management of these complications.
•The working channel endoscope can be used for a variety of spine pathologies.•Perioperative complication rates were comparable with that of open and MIS.•There were no instances of surgical-site infections.
