Anesth Pain Med.  2009 Jul;4(3):203-207.

Nucleoplasty in a patient with cervical disc extrusion with radiating pain of an upper extremity

• Ro JY
• Oh CS
• Kim OS
• Kim DK
• Woo NS
• Shin HY

Abstract

Conventional open discectomy is considered as the standard treatment for cervical disc herniation.However, open discectomy does not always yield a successful result.Nucleoplasty is a newly developed minimal invasive spinal surgery that uses the Coblation technique.The concept of Coblation involves the use of radiofrequency energy to ablate the nucleus pulposus tissue in a controlled approach leading to reduction of pressure on the nerve roots.Inclusion criteria for candidates for nucleoplasty include complaints of symptoms related to a contained herniated disc or focal protrusion.We describe here our experience with the use of nucleoplasty for a 49-year-old male patient with a cervical disc extrusion.Percutaneous decompression with nucleoplasty using the Coblation technique for the treatment of cervical disc extrusion was successfully performed with an excellent result.

Keyword

cervical; disc; nucleoplasty

MeSH Terms

Decompression
Diskectomy
Humans
Intervertebral Disc Displacement
Male
Middle Aged