ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Orthopedic Surgery
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2025.1533458
Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic Lumbar Interbody Fusion versus Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion for The Treatment of Bilateral Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Provisionally accepted
- Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of unilateral biportal endoscopic lumbar interbody fusion (UBE-LIF) and posterior lumber interbody fusion (PLIF) in treating lumbar spinal stenosis patients with bilateral radiating symptoms. All patients included in the study were single-segment lumbar spinal stenosis.Methods: From January 2021 to June 2023, 21 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis treated with UBE-LIF and 29 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis treated with PLIF were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical differences such as demographic characteristics, Surgical details, preoperative and postoperative visual analog scale(VAS), Oswestry Disability Index(ODI), MacNab criteria and complications were analyzed.Results: A total of 50 patients were included in this study. There was no difference in demographic characteristics and MacNab criteria between the two groups (P> 0.05). The operation time of UBE-LIF group was significantly longer than that of PLIF group (P< 0.05). The UBE-LIF group was significantly lower than the PLIF group in hemoglobin loss, postoperative drainage volume and hospitalization days (P< 0.05). The postoperative VAS score and ODI index were significantly lower than those before operation both groups. The VAS score and ODI index in the UBE-LIF group were significantly lower than in the PLIF group one week after operation (P < 0.05).Conclusions: UBE-LIF was able to achieve the same bilateral decompression as PLIF and better symptomatic improvement in the early postoperative period, which may be related to its lesser damage to the back muscle tissue. This study suggests that UBELIF may be a minimally invasive alternative to PLIF.Keywords: Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic Lumbar Interbody Fusion, Bilateral decompression, Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion, lumbar spinal stenosis
Keywords: Unilateral biportal endoscopic lumbar interbody fusion, Bilateral decompression, Posterior lumbar interbody fusion, Lumbar spinal stenosis, Lumbar spine instability
Received: 24 Nov 2024; Accepted: 27 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dong, Wu, Zhong, Zhao, Liu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Wang, Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.