ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Orthopedic Surgery
Comparison between Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic and Percutaneous Posterior Endoscopic Cervical Keyhole Surgery for Patient with Cervical Spondylotic Radiculopathy
Bo Zhu 1
Oujie Lai 2
Hailong Chen 3
1. Luoyang Orthopedic Traumatological Hospital, Luoyang, China
2. Ningbo No 6 Hospital, Ningbo, China
3. Henan Luoyang Orthopedic Hospital, Luoyang, 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
Abstract
Study design:retrospective study Objective: This study was aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of unilateral biportal endoscopic (UBE) and percutaneous posterior endoscopic cervical (PE) cervical keyhole foraminotomy surgeries for patients with cervical spondylotic radiculopathy (CSR). Background data: Total 123 eligible patients with single level cervical spine disc herniation treated with UBE or PE were included into our study in our Hospital from April 2020 to April 2023. Patients were divided into two groups according operation procedure. There were 28 male and 32 female in UBE group with the age of 55.0±9.0 years, 29 male and 34 female in PE group with the age of 57.3±6.9 years. Method: All data were collected from their medical records. Baseline characteristic, operation related parameters (Hospital stay, Cost and Blood loss), Clinical outcomes Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), peri-operative characteristic (operation time, cost, Surgery level, pain side). MacNab criteria grade and complications were evaluated and compared. Result:There were no significantly difference in age, gender, pain side and operation level, preoperative VAS, NDI and C2/7 Cobb angle between two group (P>0.05). UBE group showed significantly less in fluoroscopy times, and shorter in operation time. Moreover patients in UBE group achieved significantly better improvement in NDI, VAS-N (VAS of neck pain) and VAS-A (VAS of arm pain) at each follow-up visit point than PE group (P<0.05). The excellent/good rate (MacNab criteria) in UBE group were 96.67%(58) and 92.06%(58) in PE group. Three patients suffered from nerve root irritation symptoms, four patients of mild spinal epidural tear in PE group, one case of nerve root irritation symptoms occurred in UBE group. Conclusion: UBE may provide better clinical outcomes than PE in patients with CSR. And more studies need to be conducted to further confirm the efficacy of UBE
Summary
Keywords
clinical outcomes, comparativestudy, Percutaneous endoscopic cervicalkeyhole foraminotomy, Unilateral biportal endoscopic, Unilateral cervical radiculopathy
Received
09 February 2026
Accepted
17 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Zhu, Lai and Chen. 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: Bo Zhu; Hailong Chen
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.