Back Pain and Radicular Pain After Lumbar Microdiscectomy

Abstract

Abstract Purpose: It is generally expected that lumbar microdiscectomy affects radicular leg pain, but not so much local back pain. The objectives were to evaluate if the trajectories of changes in pain severity follow similar patterns for back pain and radicular leg pain after lumbar microdiscectomy and to investigate the effect of some preoperative parameters on the patterns of these trajectories. Methods: Register-based retrospective study of 353 patients undergoing microdiscectomy in lumbar spine. Linear mixed modelling was applied. Results: The average age was 46 years and 44% were women. In general, back and leg pain demonstrated similar developmental trajectories. Pain level steeply decrease during the first three months after the surgery. After three months, pain level was slightly worsening. No statistically significant effects of gender or age on pain trajectories were detected. Preoperative duration of pain was significantly associated with steeper pain worsening after one year. Milder pain before surgery predicted better outcome. Conclusion: It seems that microsurgical discectomy may alleviate both back and radicular leg pain demonstrating similar developmental curves. Age or gender did not significantly affect the trajectories of pain severity after the surgery. Prolonged and more severe preoperative pain was significantly associated with worse pain after surgery through the entire two-year follow-up.