Stand-Alone Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion and Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion With Supplemental Posterior Instrumentation in the Treatment of Lumbar Degenerative Disease: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.

Study design: Systematic Review.

Objectives: Compare the outcomes of stand-alone lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) and LLIF with supplemental posterior instrumentation in the treatment of lumbar degenerative disease by a Meta-analysis.

Methods: In this meta-analysis, we searched Pubmed, Embase, and Cochrane databases from inception to Aug 2023. In this study, only study reporting stand-alone LLIF(stand-alone group) and LLIF with supplemental posterior instrumentation (posterior instrumentation group) in the treatment of lumbar degenerative disease and we excluded duplicate publications, research without full text, incomplete information or inability to conduct data extraction, animal experiments, reviews, and systematic reviews. STATA 15.1 software was used to analyze the data.

Results: Among the 15 included articles, the total number of patients was 1177, with 469 patients (638 fused segments) in the standalone group and 708 patients (1046 fused segments) in the posterior instrumentation group. The posterior instrumentation group was better than stand-alone group with significant differences in fusion rate, cage subsidence rate,the restoration of disc height and segmental lordosis, the improvement of ODI, and reoperation rate. While, comparing with posterior instrumentation group,the stand-alone group had less intraoperative blood loss.

Conclusions: Both stand-alone and instrumented LLIF were effective in improving the clinical outcomes of patients with lumbar degenerative disease. However, the stand-alone LLIF was associated with lower fusion rate, inferior maintenance of indirect decompression, and higher reoperation rate due to high-grade cage subsidence. For patients with risk factors of high-grade cage subsidence, the LLIF with posterior instrumentation may be a better choice.