RESUMEN
Background: Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is commonly seenin the elderly especially owing to the aging of the spine.Growing in the facet joints, ligamentum flavum hypertrophy,disc degeneration, and osteophytes cause the spinal canal toconstrict and accordingly result in spinal cord and nerve rootcompression. If conservative treatments fail, surgicalintervention will be considered as the next treatment. Surgicaldecompression for LSS is indicated in a patient with intractablepain, neurogenic claudication, and motor weakness,accompanied by compromised spinal canal. Laminectomy forLSS is considered the standard surgical option to which othertechniques are compared. Ascertaining superiority of adecompression technique necessitates establishing if anydifferences exist in the complication rates and the functionaland symptomatic outcomes.Aim of the Study: To evaluate functional outcome oflaminectomy and laminotomy for the surgical management oflumber spine stenosis.Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted inthe Department of Orthopaedics, NIIMS Medical College,Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. For the study, patients with confirmedLSS (both lateral and/or central) on MR imaging who had failedconservative management, were considered for operativemanagement. Patients with spondylolisthesis, or scoliosis andthose who had undergone fusion, discectomies or furtherrevisions were excluded from the study. Following exclusions,50 patients were enrolled; 30 underwent a laminectomy withoutfusion and 20 underwent either a bilateral or unilaterallaminotomy.Results: We observed that VAS pain score decreased 6weeks post operatively for patients who underwentlaminectomy and laminotomy, however there was slightincrease in the pain score at 1-year post operatively. Theresults on comparison were found to be statically significant.Conclusion: Within the limitations of the present study, it canbe concluded that both surgeries were equally effective inimproving pain and disability.