Chronic low back pain is extremelyfrequent and its management is still con troversial among spine physicians. For decades, intervertebral fusion has been considered as the gold- standard. However, non fusion techniques have been developed in order to avoid fusion's complications. Numerous studies have reported satisfactory results of total disc arthro- plasty in the management of lumbar degenerative disc disease. So far it is still dificult to prove the superiority of disc replacement over fusion due to a lack of high level studies. The aim of this work was to try to answers various questions related to that technique which was described twenty years ago.