Objective To explore the clinical effects of percutaneous cervical nucleoplasty(PCN)and posterior percuta-neous endoscopic cervical discectomy(PPECD)in the treatment of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy.Methods Sixty-seven cases of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy due to a single-level contained soft-disc herniation in the Department of Pain Medicine of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University from May 2019 to June 2021 were selected,and divided into Group PPECD(n=35)and Group PCN(n=32)according to surgical methods.Pain was assessed by VAS scores at multiple time points before and after surgery,and cervical functional recovery was evaluated using the cer-vical dysfunction index(NDI).The modified MacNab criteria were used to evaluate the surgical efficacy at the final fol-low-up.Results All patients completed the surgery and had complete follow-up data.There was no significant differ-ence in the general preoperative conditions of the two groups of patients.The operation time of PCN treatment[(42.0±6.4)min]was significantly shorter than that of the PPECD group[(94.7±6.3)min,P<0.001].Compared with those before surgery,the VAS scores and NDI index of the two groups of patients at each postoperative time were significantly improved(P<0.05).According to the Macnab standard,the clinical effective rate of patients treated with PPECD(82.9%,29/35)was higher than that of PCN(75.0%,24/32),but the difference was not statistically significant(P>0.05).No serious postoperative complications were observed in either group of patients.Conclusion For patients with poor tolerance to surgery,PCN can be a good alternative to PPECD for patients with cervical spondylotic radiculopathy due to a single-level contained soft-disc herniation.