By Laura Dyrda
The Spine Journal accepted a new study based on in-vitro research titled “Does Impaction of Titanium-Coated Interbody Fusion Cages into the Disc Space Cause Wear Debris and/or Delamination?”
The study subjected spine devices to a simulated biomechanical impaction process into the disc space, showing 26 percent of the teeth on titanium-coated PEEK implants lost coating material ranging from one micron to 191 microns.
The study’s author, Professor Hans-Joachim Wilke, PhD, found more than half the particles were a size range that allows for phagocytosis, an osteolytic process that occurs when macrophage cells are unable to safely digest foreign material.
