Table 1.

Characteristics of the patients in the laparoscopic and open mini-anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) groups

	Laparoscopic	Mini-open	Statistics
No. of cases	22	22
Sex: M/F	5/17	6/16	NS*
Mean (range) age: years	49 (27–67)	50 (31–66)	NS*
Abdominal surgery history: n	4	5
Disc surgery historya: n	1	2
Mean (range) follow-up: months	43 (36–49)	30 (24–40)	NS*

*Not significant; chi-square test for sex ratio, t-test for age and follow-up

^a History of L5–S1 disc surgery by posterior approach