Abstract

Introduction: In military services, longer hospital stays and slower returns to work cause discrepancies between the medical staff and military superiors. Management of the disease with less invasive surgeries can help early mobilization and shorten the hospital stay. We aimed to show that soldiers with lumbar disc herniation (LDH) managed by the interlaminar discectomy (ILD), can return to work after 6 weeks. Methods: Forty consecutive patients, who underwent ILD for LDH, were selected. The clinical results were evaluated by using both the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Visual Analog Scale (VAS,) which were recorded before and after the surgery. Results: The average age at surgery was 21.5 years. Fifteen patients had LDH at L4-5 level (37,5%), 23 patients at L5-S1 level (57,5%) and 2 (5%) had two level discectomy at L4-5 and L5-S1 levels. Average hospital stay was 1.2 days. Three cases required laminatomy at L4-5 level. All of the patients took 6 weeks of rest after surgery. The average follow-up was 13 months. Mean preoperative VAS score was 8.75. Both post-operative first and sixth month VAS scores were 0.75. Mean preoperative ODI was 87.5. Post-operative 1 month and 6 month ODI were 12.95 and 9.9, respectively. All the patients returned to work after 6 weeks. Conclusions: ILD is an effective and reliable surgical technique for treating soldiers with herniated lumbar discs. With early postoperative rehabilitation, soldiers can return to work 6 weeks after surgery.