Cross-sectional areas of lumbar muscles after surgical treatment of lumbar disc herniation

Summary We assessed in this study the potential development of postoperative muscle atrophy in the operation area in 39 patients treated by either microdiscectomy or percutaneous nucleotomy for lumbar disc herniation. The cross-sectional areas of the lumbar muscles were measured on magnetic resonance images created on the day preceding the operation and 6 months postoperatively. The cross-sections of the lumbar muscles remained unchanged during the observation period in all treated patients indicating that no muscle atrophy had developed in the operation area. Since peroperative tissue trauma may correlate with subsequent muscle denervation and atrophy, this finding may be due to the tissue sparing nature of microdiscectomy and percutaneous nucleotomy, thus encouraging the use of these techniques in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation.