Percutaneous Transforaminal Endoscopic Discectomy for Lumbar Disk Herniation

Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy (PTED) is a minimally invasive technique to treat lumbar disk herniation from a lateral approach. Performed under local anesthesia, the incision size for PTED is around 8mm with no paraspinal muscle cutting or detachment from their insertion. PTED has been associated with less blood loss, faster rehabilitation, and less scarring of tissue than conventional open microdiscectomy. High-quality randomized controlled trials comparing PTED with open microdiscectomy have not been conducted yet. However, PTED has been proven to be an effective technique allowing patients to return home only 2 hours after surgery. By the means of this article and video (Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/CLINSPINE/A1), we would like to show the spine surgeon the PTED technique for the treatment of a single-level lumbar disk herniation.