Evaluation of full-endoscopic lumbar discectomy in the treatment of obese adolescents with lumbar disc herniation: a retrospective study.

Obese patients are at risk of complications after spinal surgery. Full-endoscopic lumbar discectomy (FELD) has advantages over conventional open surgery in the treatment of obese adult patients with lumbar disc herniation (LDH) because it can decrease perioperative complications and enhance the degree of patient satisfaction. However, no clinical studies have evaluated the efficacy of FELD in obese adolescents with LDH (ALDH). This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of FELD for the treatment of obese ALDH. We retrospectively collected clinical data from 208 patients with single-segment ALDH who underwent FELD in our hospital between January 2015 and December 2019. According to the WHO classification of obesity, the patients were divided into obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) and non-obese (BMI  0.05). The differences in operative time, intraoperative blood loss, and length of postoperative hospitalization were not statistically significant between the two groups (p > 0.05). FELD is a safe and effective minimally invasive technique for treating obese patients with ALDH. The efficacy of FELD in obese and non-obese patients with ALDH was comparable.