Decompression with or without Fusion for Lumbar Synovial Cysts—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The management of symptomatic lumbar synovial cysts (LSC) is still a matter of debate. Previous systematic reviews did not stratify data according to different treatment techniques or incompletely reported comparative data on patients treated with lumbar posterior decompression (LPD) and lumbar decompression and fusion (LDF). The aim of our study was to compare LPD and LDF via a systematic review and meta-analysis of the existing literature. The design of this study was in accordance with the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The review questions were as follows: among patients suffering from symptomatic lumbar synovial cysts (population) and treated with either posterior lumbar decompression or posterior decompression with fusion (intervention), who gets the best results (outcome), in terms of cyst recurrence, reoperation rates, and improvement of postoperative symptoms (comparison)? The search of the literature yielded a total of 1218 results. Duplicate records were then removed (n = 589). A total of 598 articles were screened, and 587 records were excluded via title and abstract screening; 11 studies were found to be relevant to our research question and were assessed for eligibility. Upon full-text review, 5 were excluded because they failed to report any parameter separately for both LPD and LDF. Finally, 6 studies for a total of 657 patients meeting the criteria stated above were included in the present investigation. Our analysis showed that LDF is associated with better results in terms of lower postoperative back pain and cyst recurrence compared with LPD. No differences were found in reoperation rates and complication rates between the two techniques. The impact of minimally invasive decompression techniques on the different outcomes in LSC should be assessed in the future and compared with instrumentation techniques.