Introduction

Lumbar decompression is one of the main surgeries scheduled in orthopedics, it is necessary to identify the benefits and complications of each type of approach.

Objective

Comparison of conventional and minimally invasive (MI) approaches.

Material and methods

Cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative study of minimally invasive versus conventional primary lumbar decompression.

Results

36 patients divided into 2 groups, 28 (77.7%) were conventional and 8 (22.3%) were minimally invasive, average age 7 years younger in MI (MI average 52.2 ± 8 years versus 59.8 ± 9, t Student p = 0.04), similarly measured dysfunction. They begin wandering 24 hours before (median of 24 hours against 48 hours in conventional, Mann Whitney U p = 0.012), reduction of 1.5 days of stay (median of 2.5 versus = five days in conventional, p = 0.017), and post-surgical pain in MI. Minor blood loss in MI (median of 200 in conventional versus 65 mL, Mann Whitney U p = 0.09), complications, 1 surgical site infection, 1 surgical site hematoma, 1 inadequate implant placement and 1 dura mater lesion.

Conclusions

It was demonstrated the superiority of the MI in several aspects, and the effectiveness of the Oswestry test for the functional evaluation of the strait lumbar channel.

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