Surgical Outcome and Prognostic Factors of Thoracic Disc Herniation

Clinical Article

Korean J Spine 2005;2(3): 268-273.

Han-Sug Kang, M.D., Ki-Joon Kim, M.D., Sang-Ho Lee, M.D.

Department of Neurosurgery, Wooridul Spine Hospital, Seoul, Korea

흉추 디스크 탈출증의 수술 결과와 예후 인자

강한석^,김기준^,이상호

우리들병원 신경외과

Abstract

Objective: We evaluated the clinical outcome of surgical treatment for thoracic dis cherniation and analyzed the prognostic factors. The clinical outcomes of 24 patients who had undergone operations of thoracic disc herniation were evaluated.
Methods: Preoperative symptoms included axial pain, radicular pain, evidence of myelopathy, that is, lower extremity weakness, bladder dysfunction. The authors analyzed the relationship between the clinical outcome and the preoperative patient's status, radiologic findings.
Results: Overall improvement of symptoms occurred in 21 patients(87%). There was no correlation between the clinical outcome and level of herniation, the compression rate of spinal cord.
Conclusions: The symptom duration and the presence of signal intensity change on MRI correlated with the clinical outcome. Prognostic factors could be the preoperative signal intensity change patterns of the spinal cord on MRI, the type of the preope- rative symptom and the symptom duration.

Keywords: Thoracic disc herniation.Spinal cord.Signal intensity