Posterior lumbar interbody fusion updated.

Based on over 45 years' experience in the surgical treatment of lumbar disc disease, it is recommended that the following operations be eliminated: the simple discectomy, which may cure the sciatica but not the back pain; the "decompressive laminectomy," which leaves the patient with painful instability and nerve-root scarring; and chemonucleolysis, which does not provide permanent relief of either low-back or leg pain. The PLIF technique is the answer to treatment of diseases of the lumbar spine and may be the operation of the future.