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Emerging treatments for herniated disk
By Mayo Clinic staffOpen diskectomy and microdiskectomy are the gold standards in surgical treatment for herniated disk. Minimally invasive treatments exist, such as chemonucleolysis and percutaneous arthroscopic diskectomy, but their success rates don't equal those of the two types of diskectomy. Researchers are working on less invasive treatments that provide a viable option between conservative treatments and open decompression procedures. Emerging treatments include:
Nucleoplasty. This procedure uses heat-producing (bipolar radiofrequency) technology to create an energy field that decreases pressure within a disk's nucleus. Decreased pressure within a disk can provide pain relief. Because the energy field dissolves disk tissue without creating excessive heat, damage to nearby structures is minimized.
Oxygen-ozone therapy. This therapy involves injecting a gas mixture of oxygen and ozone into a herniated disk. The treatment can limit pain and inflammation by reducing the disk's volume. When used in conjunction with corticosteroid injections, oxygen-ozone therapy may enhance the effect of the corticosteroids. Oxygen-ozone therapy is performed on an outpatient basis and doesn't require anesthesia.
Disk and nucleus replacement. In this procedure, a diseased disk is replaced with a prosthetic functional alternative. Often made of metal and plastic, these replacement disks were developed to treat the pain associated with degenerative disk disease. This is a new procedure, however, and long-term results of this procedure are still uncertain. Disk replacement has been proposed as an alternative to spinal fusion. Disk nucleus replacement is also available and is proposed to relieve pain resulting from the nucleus. This also is a new procedure without a proven track record or known long-term results. Some researchers suggest that, in the future, nucleus replacement may be performed in conjunction with a diskectomy to maintain the structure and function of the spine.
Biological repair. These are techniques that seek to repair or regenerate a disk through the use of proteins that promote the growth of cells (growth factor) and tissue engineering. Injecting growth factor into a disk showing early signs of degeneration could trigger the disk's cells to repair themselves. More research is needed before these techniques can be tried in humans.
Alternative therapies for herniated disk Surgery for herniated disk: Pros and cons
