A protein that helps to make bone may soon help back patients avoid a painful and sometimes risky procedure. When a person's lower back is painfully injured, surgeons can fuse the spine to relieve the pressure. Part of the problem is that to fuse the spine, surgeons take a piece of the patient's own pelvic bone and fuse it to the dislodged or degenerated bones in the patient's spinal column. But that carries its own risks. The process itself is painful, and the patient can lose blood during the operation and can be left with chronic hip pain.
Some patients decide to try again, but the odds are no better in a second operation.
To increase the patient's odds of successfully recovering, physicians at Emory University are beginning clinical trials on a new treatment that avoids using pelvic bone for the fusion. In animal experiments, Emory researchers, led by orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Scott Boden, found that they could use BMP to grow new bone and fuse the spine. We're trying to get the human body to make bone. We're trying to harness the body's own power to generate bones to order. In January, the federal Food and Drug Administration gave Emory approval to test BMP in patients with degenerative disks and chronic back pain.