Tubular diskectomy is no better than more conventional techniques for relieving sciatica.

Patients with sciatica get more relief with conventional treatment.
Sciatica, which is also known as lumbosacral radicular syndrome, is a painful and disabling condition where a disk in the lumbar spine is herniated. Conventional surgical treatment for sciatica consists of removing the offending disk.  A new treatment for sciatica involves minimally invasive surgery and the operation, called tubular diskectomy, leads to less tissue damage for those with sciatica.  

Till now, however, no-one has known which of the two approaches is really best in sciatica.  Researchers, led by Mark Arts, at the Medical Center Haaglanden, The Netherlands, have looked at a group of 328 patients with severe sciatica, assigning them to either tubular diskectomy or to conventional surgery.  

 Even though minimally invasive techniques are meant to lead to less time in hospital and quicker recovery, this was not so in this study.  When it came to long-term relief of sciatica, this was reported by 69% of those in the tubular diskectomy group and 79% in the conventional surgery group.  Therefore, for patients with sciatica, traditional treatment may be a better option than minimally invasive surgery.

Source:

Arts MP, Brand R et al Tubular diskectomy vs conventional microdiskectomy for sciatica Journal of the American Medical Association July 8 2009;302:149-158