Zeitschrift für Wirbelsäule

Long Term Clinical Results in Laser Reconstruction of Spine Discs

Abstract

Andrei V. Baskov, Igor A. Borshchenko, Anatoly B. Shekhter, Vladimir A. Baskov, Anna E. Guller and Emil N. Sobol

Purpose: Determine the long-term clinical outcome of the laser reconstruction of intervertebral discs (LRD) in patients with chronic degenerative spine diseases.

Methods: Ninety-seven patients with chronic back and neck pain caused by single and multi-level spinal discs degeneration were treated with non-ablative laser irradiation (1.56 μm Er:glass fiber laser) of the nucleus pulposus and the inner third of the annulus fibrosus through percutaneous needle puncture. The results were analyzed during five years after LRD by the means of clinical observation, radiological and biomechanical testing. Three surgical biopsies of the laser-irradiated disks were examined by the morphological methods. Subjective estimation of LRD influence of the patients’ life quality and back pain intensity has been performed with validated questionnaires of SF-36 and VAS.

Results: Majority of the patients, who underwent LRD procedure, demonstrated an essential improvement in their health state, including decreasing of spine discs instability, pain relief and the general quality of their lives. There were no any complications related to the use of LRD. Five-year outcome have shown positive dynamics of MRI features of the treated discs in 77% of patients as well as an improvement in the SF-36 total score and VAS in 92 and 95.9% of patients respectively. The histological results have proved the growth of hyaline like cartilage in laser-treated zone.

Conclusions: Five years outcome observations demonstrate stable positive structural changes in the intervertebral discs as well as the significant improvement in subjective feelings of the life quality and pain relief for the majority of the patients.