A significant relationship between reduced vertebral movements and better bone formation was demonstrated. No adverse effects of the OP-1 implant occurred, while persistent minor pain at the iliac crest was noticed in one patient in the autograft group. The authors concluded that there was no significant difference between the two fusion versions. The same outcome of comparable results with OP-1 were reported also by Vaccaro et al.14 who showed a successful result of slightly more than 50% in a pilot clinical trial of posterolateral fusion (with no significant difference to the historical results of autograft alone being 45%).
Boden et al.1 reported the results of lumbar interbody arthrodesis for 14 patients with a single- level lumbar degenerative disc disease. Patients were treated with tapered cylindrical threaded fusion cage filled with rhBMP-2/collagen sponge or autogenous iliac crest bone. They were evaluated with radiographs, CT, and Short Form-36 and Oswestry outcome questionnaires.
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All 11 patients who received rhBMP-2 were judged by three independent radiologists to have solid fusions from 6 months post-operatively, whereas only two of the three control patients were deemed to be fused. The Oswestry Disability Questionnaire scores of the rhBMP-2 group improved sooner (after 3 months) than those of the autograft group with both groups demonstrating similar improvement at 6 months. Short Form-36 scores continued to improve up to 24 months. In conclusion, the arthrodesis occurred more reliably in patients treated with rhBMP-2-filled fusion cages than in controls with autogenous bone graft click biologicscorp. There were no adverse events related to the rhBMP-2 treatment, but we should note that the sample size of this study was limited.
