PurposeThe clinical outcomes of using a tubular microdiscectomy for lumbar disc herniation were evaluated by comparison with conventional microdiscectomy.MethodsAll of the comparative studies published in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Medline, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases as of 1 May 2023 were included. All outcomes were analysed using Review Manager 5.4.ResultsThis meta-analysis included four randomized controlled studies with a total of 523 patients. The results showed that using tubular microdiscectomy for lumbar disc herniation was more effective than conventional microdiscectomy in improving the Oswestry Disability Index (P< 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in operating time, intraoperative blood loss, hospital stay, Visual Analogue Scale, reoperation rate, postoperative recurrence rate, dural tear incidence, and complications rate (allP> 0.05) between the tubular microdiscectomy and conventional microdiscectomy groups.ConclusionsBased on our meta-analysis, it was found that the tubular microdiscectomy group had better outcomes than the conventional microdiscectomy group in terms of Oswestry Disability Index. However, there were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of operating time, intraoperative blood loss, hospital stay, Visual Analogue Scale, reoperation rate, postoperative recurrence rate, dural tear incidence, and complications rate. Current research suggests that tubular microdiscectomy can achieve clinical results similar to those of conventional microdiscectomy.PROSPERO registration numberis: CRD42023407995.