ABSTRACT
Objective To study the technique of lumbar cathetering in lumbosacral vertebral canal operation and its effect on prevention of postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leakage.Methods Retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of patients who underwent lumbosacral ver-tebral canal surgery and suffered from difficult dural repair during the operation in Department of Neurosurgery from August 2015 to October 2015.These patients were divided into the observation group (11 cases)and the control group (12 cases)according to whether lumbar cathe-ter were placed during the operation or not.Volume of drainage was strictly controlled after surgery.Remove the epidural drainage after primi-tive healing of the dura mater.The lumbar catheter was removed after 7 to 10 days.The indwelling time of each patient was collected and sta-tistical analyzed.Results The observation group got obvious shorter epidural drainage indwelling time than the control group(P <0.05). Short-term postoperative complications did occur in some cases in observation group,however,there was no obvious increase of infection rate in patients with lumbar continuous drainage indwelling.Conclusion Lumbar cathetering during the operation could be an effective method to solve difficult problem of placeing a lumbar drainage after lumbar puncture and to prevent cerebrospinal fluid leakage after operations of lum-bosacral vertebral canal.But it can not replace the delicate operation and tight dural suture.Drainage should be used only as a remedial measure of dural repair failure.