Abstract:Objective To compare the clinical efficacy of percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) and unilateral biportal endoscopy (UBE) in treatment of single-segment lumbar disc herniation.Methods All clinical controlled studies of PELD and UBE in the treatment of single-segment lumbar disc herniation published by PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, China Biology Medicine, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Data from the establishment of the database to April 2022 were searched by computer. The data was extracted independently by two evaluators and the quality of the included literatures were evaluated by Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). After treatment, the main efficacy indexes [operation time, intraoperative hemorrhage, hospital stay, complications, pain visual analogue scale(VAS) before and after operation, Oswestry disability index (ODI) score before and after operation, postoperative excellent or good rate, the cross-sectional area of spinal canal after operation, creatine kinase] of PELD group and UBE group were observed, and Meta-analysis was performed by applying the Review Manager 5.4 software.Results Two prospective studies and five retrospective studies were included. They were divided into UBE group (n = 166) and PELD group (n = 175). Meta analysis showed that compared with UBE, PELD had shorter operation time (MD = 29.89, 95%CI: 14.07 ~ 45.71, P = 0.000), less bleeding (MD = 64.43, 95%CI: 32.07 ~ 95.79, P = 0.000), lower VAS of low back on 3 days after operation (MD = 0.72, 95%CI: 0.47 ~ 0.98, P = 0.000), VAS score of low back pain on 30 days after operation (MD = 0.27, 95%CI: 0.18 ~ 0.36, P = 0.000), VAS of leg pain on 30 days after operation (MD = 0.29, 95%CI: 0.20~0.38, P = 0.000). However, there were no statistical significance between the two groups of the postoperative hospital stay (MD = 1.70, 95%CI: -1.33 ~ 4.74, P = 0.270), complications rate (RR^ = 1.08, 95%CI: 0.38 ~ 3.07, P = 0.890), ODI within 6 months after operation (MD = -0.43, 95%CI: -0.88 ~ 0.01, P = 0.050), postoperative excellent or good rate (RR^ = 0.99, 95%CI: 0.89 ~ 1.09, P = 0.800), the cross-sectional area of spinal canal after operation (MD = 24.55, 95%CI: - 4.59 ~ 53.70, P = 0.100) and creatine phosphokinase on two days after operation (MD = 115.65, 95%CI: -101.15 ~ 332.45, P = 0.300).Conclusion UBE and PELD are effective in relieving short-term postoperative pain and promoting functional recovery, but PELD has more advantages in shorter operation time, less bleeding and early recovery of low back and leg pain compared with UBE.