How The Spinal Fusion Surgery is Performed By Experts?

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What is Spinal Fusion Surgery?

A spinal fusion surgery is helpful in relieving back pain caused by a number of diseases. The procedure aims to join, or fuse, together two or more vertebras that have been affected by an injury or a disease. By joining together the consecutive vertebra the movement of the painful vertebra is restricted and the patient gets relief.

What happens in a Spinal Fusion surgery?

The basic aim of a spinal fusion surgery is to join together two or more consecutive lumbar vertebra in the spinal column to provide relief from back pain and other spinal disorders. This is done by using two different methods:

Bone Grafting

In this type of spinal fusion the surgeon will use a piece of bone graft to assist the fusion of the vertebra bones. The grafted bone piece helps in the two vertebras to join together faster. A grafted bone helps in the bones of the vertebra to fuse faster as well as provides structural support to the vertebra.

The bone graft is either taken from the patient’s body, called an ‘auto-graft’. For this the surgeon requires to make an additional incision near the hip to harvest a piece of bone from the hip region. Another method for a natural bone graft is known as an ‘allograft’ where the surgeon will use a bone piece from a donor (cadaver) or a bone bank.

Apart from these today the surgeons have a number of synthetic materials that are available to be used as substitutes for a bone graft, such as:

Demineralized Bone Matrices (DBM) – These are created using calcium obtained from cadaver bones. Lack of mineral renders the bone into a soft putty-like substance that can be given a desired shape to suit the graft structure. These are used in conjunction with other grafts and contain proteins essential for bone healing.
Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) – These are strong artificial bone-forming proteins that assist in bone fusion. These BMPs do not need an auto-graft for bone fusion.
Ceramics – Artificial calcium or phosphate materials are similar in physical characteristics to auto-graft bones.

Immobilization

The next step after a bone graft is ‘immobilization’. This requires the fused vertebras to be held in position for the graft to take hold. The surgeon will often use screws, rods or plates to stabilize the vertebras through internal fixation.

There are also two main types of ‘approaches’ that the surgeon will choose to perform the spinal fusion surgical procedure, such as: