Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Lumbar spinal fusion has widely used in treating lumbar degenerative disease. However, the fusion rates of traditional posterior or posterolateral fusion are low, and companied by more complications, which affect adjacent segment stability and destroy distribution of mechanical loading in vertebral column.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate clinical efficacy for the treatment of lumbar degeneration with transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) based on pedical fixation.
METHODS: A total of 68 patients with lumbar degeneration were treated with TLIF and pedical screw fixation，including 24 cases of isthmus spondylolisthesis, 16 cases of degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis, 18 cases of degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis and 10 cases of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There were no complications of neurologic damage，infection of lumbar vertebrae interspace or cerebrospinal leakage. All patients were follow-up for 29 months (10-60 months). There were no inner fixation breakage and loosing, and no disc space height losing in all cases. Intervertebral fusion rate was 91%. Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score showed 35 cases were excellent, 26 good, 5 improved and 2 worse, with 89.71% excellent and good rate. TLIF based on pedical screw fixation is an effective method for the treatment of lumbar degeneration. The short-term results are satisfied.