Table 2.

Comparison of perioperative outcomes between the durotomy and no durotomy groups.

Outcome	No durotomy (n=371)	Durotomy (n=38)	p-value
Specific Procedures†			0.54
Decompression Only	321 (88%)	33 (89%)
Non instrumented Fusion	19 (5%)	3 (8%)
Instrumented Fusion	23 (6%)	1 (3%)
Multi-level Fusion	15 (4%)	1 (3%)	0.99
Decompression Level
L2–L3	129 (36%)	17 (45%)	0.35
L3–L4	251 (69%)	29 (76%)	0.47
L4–L5	335 (92%)	36 (95%)	0.82
L5–S1	134 (37%)	19 (50%)	0.16
Levels Decompressed			0.082
None	8 (2%)	0 (0%)
1	86 (23%)	7 (18%)
2	120 (32%)	7 (18%)
3+	157 (42%)	24 (63%)
Operation time (min)	125.2 (66.8)	161.7 (44.5)	0.001
Blood loss (ml)	288.9 (396.1)	534.4 (421.8)	<0.001
Blood Replacement
Intraoperative replacement	33 (9%)	6 (16%)	0.26
Post-operative transfusion	17 (5%)	3 (8%)	0.59
Length of stay (days)	3.1 (2.4)	4.3 (2.1)	0.003
Intraoperative complications§
Vascular injury	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Other	3 (1%)	0 (0%)	0.66
None	368 (99%)	38 (100%)

^*Surgical information was available for 371 non-durotomy and 38 durotomy patients.

^†Specific procedure data was available for 363 non-durotomy and 37 durotomy patients.

^§No cases were reported of aspiration into the respiratory tract or operation at wrong level.