March 19, 2007

A new study published in the March 15 issue of Spine shows that the majority of patients who were implanted with the CHARITÉ Artificial Disc by the study’s author between 1989 and 1995 continue to have less pain and more mobility as much as 16 years after the procedure.

The retrospective study examined the safety and effectiveness of the CHARITÉ Disc in 108 patients operated on by Thierry David, MD, orthopedic spine surgeon from the Department of Orthopaedics Polyclinique De Bois Bernard, Rouvroy, France. The studied patients all had one-level (either at L4 – L5 or L5 – S1) lumbar degenerative disc disease and had failed non-operative treatment.

Patients were followed for a minimum of ten years and up to 16.8 years. The study reports that 87 (82.1%) patients experienced "excellent or good" clinical outcomes, prosthesis mobility was 90.6% and that nearly 90% of patients eligible to work before surgery returned to work, more than three-quarters to hard labor. The average range of motion (ROM) in flexion-extension was 10.1 degrees and lateral bending was 4.4 degrees.

"The patients in this series continue to do well after many years," said Dr. David. "The results are encouraging since it’s been more than 10 years since these patients had an implant and since then the instrumentation and techniques to implant the disc continue to evolve, as has the criteria for patient selection."

Source: Medical News Today