Lumbar intervertebral disc herniation in childhood: a report of 7 cases

Abstract

Lumbar disc herniation is a rare pathology in adolescent age and these patients only constitute 1-5\% of all patients who underwent surgery for disc herniation. Trauma and family history are reported as important initiating factors for disc herniations but degenerative changes are less important than adults. The objective of this study was to treat the lumbar intervertebral disc herniation in childhood. Between 2005 and 2016, we performed interlaminarmicrodiscectomy to 7 patients younger than 15 years of age for lumbar disc herniation. These patients were evaluated for clinical features, radiological features, operative findings and outcome of surgery. All patients were complaining of low back pain, six of them had radicular pain. Although most of our patients have significant trauma histories there are no evidences of severe trauma on imaging studies. We had excellent results in all patients for the improvement of low back pain and leg pain but neurological deficits were more resistant to improvement. We had excellent results with limited laminectomy and microdiscectomy without fusion. In all cases pains improved postoperatively and they got back to their normal lifestyle in one month.