Fully Endoscopic Transforaminal Discectomy under Local Anesthesia for Thoracic Disc Herniations: A Case Series

Background: Symptomatic thoracic disc herniation is a relatively rare yet challenging-to-treat condition. Minimally invasive approaches potentially offer less complications and quick recovery. Purpose: Here we describe a step-by-step technique for fully-endoscopic foraminoplasty with high-speed drill under direct visualization through transforaminal/retropleural approach, followed by discectomy to treat thoracic disc herniations under local anesthesia, and report the primary results of a case series. Results: Between January 2012 and December, 2017, 16 patients with symptomatic thoracic disc herniation were treated with fully endoscopic transforaminal foraminoplasty and discectomy under local anesthesia. Intraoperative data and clinical outcomes were analyzed and reported. One patient with a chronic calcified giant central disc herniation and significant myelopathy had complaints of worsening symptoms postoperatively; she subsequently underwent open multi-level laminectomy fusion surgery elsewhere. For the remaining 15 patients, at the final follow up (mean: 21 months; range: 7–60 months), the mean VAS was improved from 7.9 to 2.1. No other complications were observed or reported during and after the surgery. Conclusion: Results from this case series shows that fully-endoscopic transforaminal/retropleural foraminoplasty and discectomy under local anesthesia is a safe and effective treatment for symptomatic soft and calcified thoracic disc herniations. *Corresponding author: Jian Shen, Department of Spine Surgery, Mohawk Valley Orthopedics, Center for Spine Regeneration Surgery, 215 East 77th Street, New York-10075, USA, Tel: + 518842-2663, E-mail: james2173@yahoo.com Received August 24, 2018; Accepted September 03, 2018; Published September 06, 2018 Citation: Shen J (2018) Fully Endoscopic Transforaminal Discectomy under Local Anesthesia for Thoracic Disc Herniations: A Case Series. J Spine S7: 013. doi: 10.0132/2165-7939.S7-013 Copyright: © 2018 Shen J. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.