Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Debridement and Fusion with Percutaneous Pedicle Screw Instrumentation for Spondylodiscitis.

BACKGROUND

Minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody debridement and fusion (MiTLIDF) with percutaneous pedicle screw instrumentation (PSI) is a less invasive treatment for lumbar spondylodiscitis.

METHODS

Patients with single-level lumbar spondylodiscitis were surgically treated by interbody debridement and fusion through an anterior or transforaminal approach combined with open or percutaneous PSI (group A: anterior debridement and interbody fusion with open posterior PSI; group B: transforaminal lumbar interbody debridement and fusion [TLIDF] with open posterior PSI; group C: anterior debridement and interbody fusion with percutaneous PSI; group D: MiTLIDF with percutaneous PSI). Perioperative data, fusion status, infection-free survival, and clinical outcome measurements were compared among the 4 surgical groups.

RESULTS

A total of 82 patients were included in this study. TLIDF was associated with shorter operative time when compared with the anterior approach (group A: 302.8 ± 59.9 minutes; group B: 209.2 ± 31.0 minutes; group C: 260.6 ± 62.5 minutes; group D: 207.1 ± 33.6 minutes; P < 0.001). Percutaneous PSI resulted in less intraoperative blood loss (group A: 907.5 ± 253.7 mL; group B: 859.4 ± 201.2 mL; group C: 532.9 ± 193.7 mL; group D: 399.1 ± 84.3 mL) and reduced immediate postoperative pain (group A: 5.5 ± 0.9; group B: 4.9 ± 0.9; group C: 3.9 ± 0.7; group D: 3.2 ± 0.7) than open PSI (P < 0.001). There were no significant differences in terms of overall infection-free survival (P = 0.936).

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated MiTLIDF with percutaneous PSI is a safe and effective treatment for lumbar spondylodiscitis while incurring no adverse effects in terms of fusion rate, functional recovery, and infection eradication.