The morbidity of bone grafting is generally considered relatively low, however it poses as a post operative complication. We investigated the clinical results of 52 patients with lumbar degenerative disease who underwent postero-lateral fusion (PLF) using the local bone compared with 21 patients who underwent PLF using iliac bone. The fusion rate with local bone was 81%, and that with iliac bone was 89%. The fusion rate with the local bone for elderly patients was 46.7% and that with the local bone for multilevel fixation was 53%. Rigid union is apparently difficult to obtain for elderly patients and multilevel fixation using the local bone in PLF.
