gms | German Medical Science

57th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery
Joint Meeting with the Japanese Neurosurgical Society

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

11 - 14 May, Essen

Re-operation rate after instrumented posterior lumbar interbody fusion. A report on 1680 cases

Reoperationsrate nach instrumentierter posterolumbaler intersomatischer Fusion. Ein Report über 1680 Fälle

Meeting Abstract

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  • corresponding author R. Greiner-Perth - Klinik für Wirbelsäulenchirurgie, orthopädische Chirurgie und Neurotraumatologie, SRH Waldklinikum, Gera
  • Y. Allam - Klinik für Wirbelsäulenchirurgie, orthopädische Chirurgie und Neurotraumatologie, SRH Waldklinikum, Gera
  • J. Franke - Klinik für Orthopädie, Otto-von-Guericke Universität, Magdeburg

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Japanische Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 57. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie e.V. (DGNC), Joint Meeting mit der Japanischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Essen, 11.-14.05.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. DocSA.07.03

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dgnc2006/06dgnc124.shtml

Published: May 8, 2006

© 2006 Greiner-Perth et al.
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Outline

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Objective: The use of different techniques demonstrates that there is currently no ideal procedure for lumbar fusion. The instrumented posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) shows a comparable success rate to the so called 360° fusion techniques (combined dorso-ventral spondylodesis) without the need of an anterior approach.

To answer the following questions: Re-operation rate after PLIF? And is there any influence of the length of fusion on the re-operation rate?

Methods: We reviewed 1680 patients, who underwent a PLIF at our institution between 1/1995 and 12/2000. 3053 levels were fused. The re-operation rate was analysed. The mean follow-up was 5 years.

Results: There were 221 (13.2%) re-operations in 206 patients (12.2%). Out of 1680 PLIF, 312 were multisegmental (>2 segments). Within this group 45 (14.4%) revisions were done. We found that the most important difference between the multisegmental PLIFs and the mono- or bisegmental PLIFs, is the rate of adjacent segment decompensation (5.1% compared to 2.3%) and this was statistically significant. The re-operation rate between those two groups was only slightly different with 12.9% for mono- or bisegmental and 14.4% for multisegmental PLIFs.

Conclusions: The fusion length does not show a significant difference on the re-operation rate as such. Nevertheless we registered a significant higher incidence for decompensation of adjacent segments after multisegmental PLIFs.