Bone Graft Extenders

Abstract

The goal of spinal arthrodesis is to eliminate pathologic motion between adjacent vertebral segments. Several spinal conditions which are managed and treated operatively after failure of conservative measures require surgical intervention such to achieve a solid fusion. Presently at the time of surgery intervention, spinal instrumentation is often used to further stabilize adjacent levels, but true arthrodesis is independent of the hardware and requires growth of bone across the immobilized spinal segments forming one unified structure. The use of autologous bone grafting has been shown to significantly improve the rate of spinal fusion [1–4]. However, presently, a wide variety of materials are used due to the morbidity of autologous bone graft harvesting either alone or in combination to facilitate fusion; these include autogenous graft, allogenic graft, dematerialized bone matrix, bone morphogenic proteins (BMP), synthetic graft extenders, and synthetic cages. In this chapter we will focus on bone graft extenders.