This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Study: BMP does not significantly affect nonunion rates in spinal fusion

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Bone morphogenic protein did not statistically significantly reduce the rate of nonunion in spinal fusions, according to recently presented research.

“The study raises important questions on the usefulness of [bone morphogenic protein] BMP in spinal fusion surgery. This is not the first study that points [these questions] out, but it is by far the largest series of patients with such detailed analysis,” Kern H. Guppy, MD, PhD, FAANS, stated in a press release.

The researchers divided 9,425 spinal fusion cases from the Kaiser Permanente Spine Registry performed between 2009 and 2011 into two groups based on whether the surgery included BMP or not. Although there were statistical differences between both groups regarding age, gender, operating time or length of stay, Guppy and colleagues found no statistically significant difference in reoperation rates at 1 year after adjusting for potential confounders.

When adjusting for confounders, such as region of spine fused and number of levels fused, the risk for reoperation in the BMP group was 0.64 when compared to the patients who did not receive BMP, according to the press release. Differences between the groups in the lumbar- and cervical-only subregions did not reach statistical significance.

Guppy noted this study was not prospective or randomized and could include selection bias, but “uses real-world data without any of the restrictive inclusion/exclusion criteria encountered in a clinical trial.”

He added, “Statistically we attempted to correct for selection bias, but even with our corrections, the results do not show a statistically significant difference in nonunion rates. We expect to continue to monitor the performance of BMP closely as we accumulate more cases and follow-up time in our registry.”

Reference:

Guppy KH. Does bone morphogenic protein change the operative nonunion rates in spine fusions? Presented at: American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting; April 27-May 1, 2013; New Orleans.

Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.