Surgical Techniques and Perioperative Surgical Outcomes after Discectomy for Calcified Lumbar Disc Herniation: a Review and Meta-Analysis.

Calcified lumbar disc herniation (CLDH) poses surgical challenges due to longstanding disease and adherence of herniated disc to the surrounding neural structures. The data regarding outcomes after surgery for CLDH are limited. This review was conducted to analyse the surgical techniques, perioperative findings and the postoperative clinical outcomes after surgery for CLDH. PRISMA guidelines were followed whilst conducting this systematic review and meta-analysis. The literature review was conducted on 3 databases (PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL). After thorough screening of all search results, 9 studies were shortlisted from which data were extracted and statistical analysis was done. Pooled analysis was done to ascertain the perioperative and postoperative outcomes after surgery for CLDH. Additional comparative analysis was done compared to CLDH with non-calcified lumbar disc herniation (NCLDH) cases. We included 9 studies published between 2016 and 2022 in our review, 8 of these were retrospective. A total of 356 cases of CLDH were evaluated in these studies with a male preponderance (56.4