Home » Knowledge Center » Surgical Treatments » Spinal Fusion without Instrumentation and Implants

Spinal Fusion without Instrumentation and Implants

One of the most traditional spine operations performed is the spinal fusion. It is considered one of the “gold standard” operations in spinal surgery and has been performed for close to 100 years. The underlying goal of spinal fusion surgery is to stop motion in the spine by fusing two or more vertebrae together.

A traditional spinal fusion surgery is performed by radically exposing the bone of the vertebrae, making it bleed, then placing pieces of bone graft on the bleeding surfaces. The bone graft may come from either the surgery site or more typically from the hip area of the patient. More recently, human donor bone is also used along with some synthetic products that are FDA approved and commercially available.

After a fusion surgery patients are placed in either a body cast or brace for 3-6 months until the bones “fuse” together. What a fusion operation tries to do is to speed-up what Mother Nature is going to do naturally. The end stage of the degenerative process is spontaneous fusion. By doing so, the theory is that pain is relieved because arthritic bone and joint in the spine are not grinding together. Of course, spinal fusions are performed for other reasons such as fractures, correction of deformities such as scoliosis, and for removing tumors.

Spinal fusion surgeries are major operations requiring a general anesthesia, blood transfusions, and long operative times. Further, all of the spine muscles around the fusion site need to be cut and in most cases, depending on the underlying condition being treated, a significant amount of bone is removed.

One of the problems that can occur is that the fusion does not take or heal. This is called a failed fusion, or pseudoarthrosis, which may then need to be redone again. A condition called “fusion disease” may develop causing severe localized pain, muscle spasms, nerve irritation, excessive scar tissue formation, and pain at the bone graft site.

Several factors have been identified that can cause a failed fusion surgery. These include persistent motion at the fusion site, poor health and nutrition, smoking, and various underlying medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, thyroid disorders, obesity, and osteoporosis to name a few. In the best of conditions, spine fusions performed without the use of spine instrumentation only offer a 60-70% success rate.

Spinal Fusion without Instrumentation can treat the following conditions:

Spondylolisthesis
Facet Arthritis