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Chymopapain chemonucleolysis was performed on 100 patients with primary lumbar intervertebral disc disease. The results were compared with those of 174 patients who underwent laminotomy, foraminotomy, and discectomy. Primary lumbar intervertebral disc disease was arbitrarily divided into degenerative, complex, previous surgical, and simple disc syndromes. No difference was seen between chemonucleolysis and surgery in the first three divisions; between 55 percent and 60 per cent of patients responded successfully to treatment. In the simple disc division 89 per cent of the surgical and 60 per cent of the chemonucleolysis patients had successful results.

Twenty-nine patients with persistent, low back and sciatic pain received intradiscal collagenase at a single abnormal disk space after two months of conservative therapy and two weeks of additional bed rest. Complete pain relief was achieved in six patients (21%), notable relief in 12 (42%), moderate in six (21%), and slight in one. Four patients (14%) who obtained no improvement by enzyme injection recovered after extruded disk fragments were removed from the spinal canal during a later operation. Pain relief after collagenase injection took place gradually over a two- to three-week period and was associated with some early backache. Improvement then continued at a slower rate for two to three months. There were no adverse effects of enzyme therapy. Injected disk spaces usually showed radiological narrowing.

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