A retrospective review of patients who underwent minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion from 2007 to 2010 that included rhBMP-2 found that complications resulted in substantial financial cost for the patients and surgeon, according to a report published in The Spine Journal.
The review included 573 patients who underwent an MIS laminectomy with bilateral facetectomy, single TLIF cage, unilateral pedicel screw fixation and 12 mg or 4.2 mg of rhBMP-2 by a single surgeon. Of those patients, 10 underwent 15 additional procedures based on recalcitrant radiculopathy and CT evidence of neuroforaminal bone graft, vertebral body osteolysis and/or cage migration, according to the report.
An additional 39 patients underwent re-operation for clinically symptomatic pseudarthrosis and bone overgrowth associated with nerve impingement and radiculopathy was found in 10 patients.
The average total cost per procedure was $19, 224 and costs for re-operation equaled $14,785 per encounter for neuroforaminal bone growth and $20,267 for pseudarthrosis.
Kern Signh, MD, Alejandro Marquez-Lara, MD, Thomas D. Cha, MD, MBA, Safdar N. Khan, MD, and Steven J. Fineberg, MD, were physician authors of the study.
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