Lumbar disc surgery in regional anaesthesia - 40 years of experience

Lumbar disc operations have been performed in Brno since 1952 and from the very beginning they are performed under regional anaesthesia. Since 1965 un til 1999 about 16 000 operations for herniated discs have been performed he re. The number of operations doubled with the foundation of the second neur osurgical department in Brno in 1992. Lumbar disc surgery represents 25% of the operation spectrum in our department. Epidural anaesthesia is advantageous for less risk of some complications co mpared with general anaesthesia and enables communication between the surge on and the patient. Other advantages are: less visible bleeding in the oper ative field due to the lateral position and the fact that the surgeon can s it during the operation. On a longterm basis we found 4-5% had further surg ery for reccurent problems. Objective neurological evaluation 6 weeks after the operation showed improvement in 92% of patients. The patients themselv es consider their status as very good or satisfactory in 82% (median 3 year s after the operation). Besides a correctly performed operation we emphesiz e also the role of correct diagnosis (good correlation between the patient' s problems and CT scan finding) for a good treatment result.