A study published in Spine examines whether bone morphogenetic protein changes operative nonunion rates for spinal fusions.
The retrospective cohort study examined data from an integrated healthcare system's spine registry for spinal fusion cases from 2009 to 2011. There were 9,425 cases in that timeframe, with 5,456 using BMP. There were 3,969 non-BMP spinal fusions included.
The average patient age was 60 years old and the majority of patients were female. The patients had an average follow up of 1.2 years. The researchers found:
1. Reoperation rate for the BMP group was 1.9 percent. For the non-BMP group, the reoperation rate was 2.2 percent with a one year or more follow up.
2. Patients who had a two year or more follow-up also reported reoperations, but the difference wasn't significant. The BMP patients in this category had a 2.3 percent reoperation rate, compared with 2.6 percent among the non-BMP patients.
3. Operative nonunion rates weren't statistically significant for different spine regions or for different fused columns. The researchers examined anterior-only, posterior-only and combined procedures.
4. The risk of reoperation in the BMP group versus the non-BMP group was 0.67. The researchers controlled for patient characteristics, operative times, levels fused and spinal region when calculating the risk.
5. The researchers concluded there wasn't a significant difference in operative nonunion rates between the BMP and non-BMP patients.
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