In their article (Villavicencio AT, Burneikiene S, Nelson EL, et al: Safety of transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion and intervertebral recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein– 2. J Neurosurg Spine 3: 436– 443, December, 2005), Villavicencio and colleagues referred to the work by Haid et al., claiming that the fusion rates during posterior lumbar interbody fusion using recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (rhBMP)– 2 with cylindrical interbody cages were lower in patients treated with BMP-2 than in those treated using an autograft (77.8 and 92.3%, respectively). Note, however, that the success rates as expressed in percentages are exactly opposite, indicating that the use of recombinant BMP was superior, although not statistically so, compared with autograft treatment. This finding accords with our own as well as with the experience of other investigators using recombinant BMPs in different bone microenvironments including long bone nonunions and acute fractures, scaphoid nonunions, and spinal fusions.

Temeljne medicinske znanosti,Kliničke medicinske znanosti