Background：For young patients, the surgical method for lumbar disc herniation remains controversial. The aim of this study was to prospectively determine the short-term clinical outcome after surgery for young patients with lumbar disc herniation.

Methods：In this prospective comparative study between April 2010 and August 2011, a total of 80 patients underwent primary surgery at a single level for lumbar disc herniation. The patients were divided into two groups: decompression alone and decompression with instrumented fusion. An independent examiner clinically evaluated the patients at preoperation, and at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery. Patients filled out the instruments for back and leg pain using a visual analog scale (VAS), Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire (ODI) and Japanese Orthopaedic Association scores (JOA). The differences between the two groups were analyzed.

Results：The mean age of all the patients at the time of surgery was 33.7 years. Of the 80 patients, 38 patients underwent decompression alone and 42 patients underwent posterior lumbar interbody fusion. Increasing complexity of surgery was associated with a longer surgery time, greater blood loss and a longer hospital stay after surgery. Both methods of surgery independently improved outcomes compared with baseline status, based on VAS, ODI and JOA scores (P<0.05), and no significant differences were found between the two groups at most of the measuring points in time, although patients with decompression alone had a higher JOA score (P=0.016) and higher JOA recovery rate (P=0.010) at the 3-month follow-up.

Conclusions：The short-term results of our study showed that both methods of surgery obtained effective clinical outcomes, but decompression alone had some advantages (shorter surgery time and blood loss, shorter hospital stay, and lower cost) compared with decompression with instrumented fusion. Young patients with decompression alone could achieve great physical function earlier.