OBJECTIVE: the aim of this article is to compare the clinical and radiological results of patients who underwent open and minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion. METHODS: forty-five patients underwent transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion by the Department of Spine Surgery of Hospital Lifecenter/Ortopédico, between December 2005 and May 2007, 15 of them were in the open interbody fusion group, and 30 in the minimally invasive one. The indications were: the degenerative disc disease associated or not with discal herniation or stenosis; low grade lythic or degenerative spondylolisthesis and post-discectomy/laminectomy syndrome. The variables analyzed were operative time, length of hospital stay, need for blood transfusion, visual analogical pain scale (VAS), Oswestry functional disability index, solid fusion and return to work. RESULTS: the minimum follow-up was two years. There were eight men and seven women in the Open Group, and 17 men and 13 women in the MIS Group. The mean operative time was 222 minutes and 221 minutes, respectively. There was improvement on the VAS and Oswestry scores in both groups. The mean hospital stay was 3.3 days for Open, and 1.8 days for the MIS group. The fusion rate obtained was 93.3% in both groups. Blood transfusion was necessary for three patients (20%) of the Open Group. CONCLUSIONS: the MIS TLIF has similar results to open TLIF in two years follow-up, with additional benefits of less postoperative morbidity, shorter hospital stay and sooner rehabilitation.
Surgical procedures, minimally invasive; Lumbar vertebrae; Lumbar vertebrae; Spinal fusion
