<somewhat OT>
January 16, 2007......
I checked into Columbia/St. Mary's hospital in Milwaukee, WI for a single level Diskectomy and Fusion procedure. The spine site was L5-S1, not an uncommon "back problem" area for lots of Baby Boomers these days.
Chosen for the procedure were Abbott Spine's (part of Abbott Labs) "Anterior Lumbar Spacer System", a titanium cage that goes by the name of "InFix"
us.abbottspine.com
(about 1/2 way down the page)
This device is a modular component which can be customized to the individual as far as height and angle goes.
and
Medtronic's InFuse recombinant generated human bone growth hormone
infusebonegraft.com
The procedure involves going to the site via an abdominal wall incision - an anterior approach - as this is considered minimally invasive. To fully grasp what "minimally invasive" means, it needs to be understood just how much work has to be done to approach a spinal disk from the posterior direction - messy at best.
First the Dr. removed the remains of the disk that had been a problem for around 30 years. Next the L5-S1 junction was separated enough to do some preparation to the facing structures to accept the InFix titanium device. The cage was inserted and a packing material put in place. The cage provides proper spacing and angle of the facing vertebrae which gives ample room for the branching nerves at that level. It provides structural support until the bone fusion takes place. No "fasteners" are used with this device, it's self-contained. The packing material was then saturated with the synthetic bone growth hormone before the surgeon buttoned me up. This procedure took something less than 2.5 hours as I was awake and somewhat aware of the time while in the Recovery Room about that long after they put me "under."
Discharged after two nights in the hospital, I was essentially housebound for a couple of weeks, partly due to recovery and partly due to the weather in January in WI. After that I was "freed" to drive my car short distances, go to my office, etc.
At 4 weeks I went in for an x-ray and review. To my delight and surprise the xray showed the the fusion site to be 100% bridged with new bone material. While only maybe the consistency of putty at that point, the new bone bridging was complete. Only completion of the increase in density at the site was then needed.
By comparison, when I had similar surgery done on my neck back in 1999, at 4 weeks the site was only about 25% bridged. That one used bone graft supported by a titanium plate and screws. So, this newer procedure is rather incredible in its acceleration of recovery.
On Monday, 2 weeks short of 4 months since surgery, the latest xray shows essentially no difference in bone density between the L5 vertebra, the new bridging bone and the sacrum. Essentially it's now all one solid piece. This is about 1-2 months quicker than the "old" bone graft procedure of the past.
So, after about 30 years of discomfort I'm essentially pain free. It's so long since I felt this way that I really don't remember what it was like.
The gifted hands of Dr. James Stoll, the nifty Abbott cage and the rather incredible bone growth hormone from Medtronics all get my highest regard.
I've looked around to see where else the growth hormone might have been used but only find a few papers showing experimental use in long bone breaks. It would seem to me a really nice product to use where there's anticipated problems with bone grafts or fracture repairs. Anyone else know if this material's being used elsewhere in the body other than spines?
Have a great weekend,
Tom |
