Is the rate of re-operation after primary lumbar microdiscectomy affected by surgeon grade or intra-operative lavage of the disc space?

AbstractStudy design. Retrospective audit of consecutive patients. Objective. To investigate the re-operation rate following elective primary lumbar microdiscectomy and to determine whether principal surgeon grade and/or disc space lavage is a factor in recurrence. Summary of background data. Recurrent herniation of disc material following lumbar microdiscecomy surgery is one of the commonest complications of the procedure. Any reduction in the number of revision microdiscectomies performed per year would have a significant impact on patients’ lives and on the health service economy. We undertook this study to ascertain whether principal surgeon grade and/or disc space lavage has an impact in reducing the re-operation rate. Methods. We undertook a retrospective audit of patients who underwent elective primary lumbar microdiscectomy, over a 3-year period (n = 971). Results. The overall re-operation rate for primary elective microdiscectomy was 3.8%, consistent with the published literature. The relative ri...