retained lumbar intradiscal surgical knife blade retrieved via extended extraforaminal approach: case report and review

Background and importance: during a lumbar discectomy, the surgical knife might be brokenand embedded deeply within the disc space. in some cases, it may be impossible to removethe broken blade during the initial surgery despite allocating several hours for this purpose.this fact may justify a subsequent surgical session. however, the eventual retrieval of thebroken scalpel during a second surgical encounter can likewise be a very daunting challenge.case presantation: an l4-l5 discectomy in a young boy was complicated by the presence ofan intradiscal broken surgical knife blade. the broken blade was successfully retrieved in asubsequent surgical session via the extended extraforaminal approach.conclusion: the occurrence of an intradiscal retained broken scalpel has been rarely discussedwithin medical literature. there exist a wide variety of different approaches used for such aneeded retrieval. the extended extraforaminal corridor has yet to be described within thecontext of medical journalism.