Short-term comparison of preoperative and postoperative pain after indirect decompression surgery and direct decompression surgery in patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis

The purpose of this study was to compare the short-term clinical outcomes between extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF) and minimally invasive surgery (MIS)–transforaminal interbody fusion (TLIF) in patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis with stenosis. One hundred-six patients were enrolled; 44 were treated with MIS–TLIF (direct decompression group; DP), and 62 were treated with XLIF (indirect decompression group; IDP). Perioperative indexes included operation time and intraoperative bleeding. Perioperative indexes preoperative and postoperative numeric rating scale (NRS) scores for low back pain (NRS-BP), leg pain (NRS-LP), and leg numbness (NRS-LN), and the preoperative score on the Japanese version of the painDETECT questionnaire (PDQ-J) were also assessed. The average follow-up period for the collection of NRS scores was 12.6 months. The operation time was significantly shorter in the IDP than in the DP group (109.9 ± 35.4 vs. 153.3 ± 50.9 min; p p p