2023 Volume 14 Issue 10 Pages 1318-1324
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the bony union of human demineralized bone matrix (DBM) and iliac crest bone graft (ICBG) in lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) cages.
Subjects: Twenty-one patients (mean age 76.4 year) who underwent LLIF for lumbar degenerative disease from March 2019 to August 2020. The cage material was titanium for 30 intervertebral spaces in 12 patients and polyetheretherketone (PEEK) for 20 intervertebral spaces in 9 patients. The cage was filled with DBM alone and ICBG, divided into left and right sides with the midline as a border. Bony union was evaluated by CT images more than one year after operation. This time, we measured CT values of each grafted bone in the cage.
Results: Intra-cage bone fusion was achieved in 62% for DBM and 90% for ICBG (P=0.001). There was no significant difference in DBM (87%) and ICBG (97%) for titanium cages (P=0.353), while there was a significant difference in DBM (25%) and ICBG (80%) for PEEK cages (P=0.001). The CT values of the grafted bone showed a similar trend to the degree of the examiner's visual assessment of the bone union.
Conclusions: We observed a comparable ossification between DBM and ICBG in the titanium cages.
