Surgical Treatment for Lumbar Ithmic Spondylolisthesis with Radicular Pain

Generally, lumber body fusion is indicated for patients who fail to respond to conservative measures. If neurologic findings such as numbness, leg pain are present with lumbar ithmic spondylolisthesis, lumber body fusion and root decompression may be needed.We performed root decompressino and fixation of the loose lamina without lumber body fusion in 8 cases. With our method, the loose lamina was fixed by facet fusion to the neighboring lumber segment below.We measured the instability of the loose lamina at the lateral view of X-ray. 3 cases showed instability of the loose lamina postoperatively, and preoperative symptoms remaining. 2 cases for which fixation was achiered postoperatively showed reduction of symptoms. 3 cases who showed no instability of the loose lamina preoperatively showed good clinical results.These results suggest that the fixation of the loose lamina affects the postoperative clinical results to some extent. As fixation of the loose lamina was successful in only 2 and of 8 cases our surgical method still regnires considerable improvement.