Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic Lumbar Interbody Fusion. Technical Note and Surgical Comparison with Conventional MIS TLIF.

Abstract Backgrounds : Minimally invasive surgery develops very extensively in past few decades, not only in the scope of decompression but until fusion surgery. Surgeon has been trying to reduce the damage to the normal anatomical structure. In this study we performed unilateral biportal endoscopic lumbar interbody fusion (ULIF) as one of the fusion option which is readily available without sophisticated minimal invasive instrument. The purpose of this study is to introduce unilateral biportal endoscopic surgery and comparing the result with conventional minimal invasive lumbar interbody fusion (MIS-TLIF) Methods : This is a retrospective cohort study of 145 lumbar spondylolisthesis patient underwent conventional MIS-TLIF or ULIF procedure. All patient were followed up until 12 months to evaluate the VAS of back pain and leg pain, ODI, SF-36 and fusion rate. Results : Back pain VAS were a little higher compared with the endoscopic group, but the VAS of leg pain were the same. Both group had improvement in ODI score and SF-36 which shows both of the procedure were quite effective in managing such cases. Conclusion : Full endoscopic fusion offer benefit of minimal invasive surgery with better visualization of decompression and endplate preparation. Long term follow up is still needed to evaluate the result of the procedure.