Different operative findings of cases predicted to be symptomatic discal pseudocysts after percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy

Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) is a minimally invasive treatment for lumbar disc herniation (LDH). This report focused on one of the rare complications of PELD: symptomatic postoperative discal pseudocyst (PDP). A 27-year-old male patient (case 1) presented with recurrent radiculopathy in his left leg. Twenty days previously, he had undergone PELD for left L4/5 LDH and his symptoms temporarily improved. A 14-year-old female patient (case 2) also developed recurrent pain in her left leg. Thirty days previously, she had undergone PELD for left L4/5 LDH and her symptoms disappeared. On the basis of the finding of an expandable round lesion at the evacuated sites of LDH on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), with low intensity of T1-weighted imaging and high intensity on T2-weighted imaging, we predicted symptomatic PDP in both cases. Given the progressive leg pain in both cases, surgical treatments were adopted (case 1: microendoscopic discectomy, case 2: PELD). During the operation, we confirmed that case 1 was a simple recurrence of LDH and case 2 was symptomatic PDP. Previous studies on symptomatic PDP included cases diagnosed without operative findings. Therefore, it should be carefully considered that such cases might be a simple recurrence of LDH.