Spinal disk implant
The Food and Drug Administration in October approved the first artificial spinal disk to replace a diseased or damaged disk. The procedure is a surgical alternative to spinal fusion.
Spinal fusion
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Dec. 30, 2004 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday December 30, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 56 words Type of Material: Correction
Spinal disk graphic -- A portion of the text in a graphic in Monday’s Health section about a new spinal surgery procedure was misprinted as the result of a computer problem. Thus, the name of the new procedure, Charite, was given as Charit, and the credit for artist Raoul Ranoa was misprinted as Raoul Ra oa.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday January 03, 2005 Home Edition Health Part F Page 10 Features Desk 1 inches; 57 words Type of Material: Correction
Spinal disk implant graphic -- A portion of the text in a graphic in Monday’s Health section about a new spinal surgery procedure was misprinted as the result of a computer problem. Thus, the name of the new procedure, Charite, was given as Charit, and the credit for artist Raoul Ranoa was misprinted as Raoul Ra oa.
Performed on about 200,000 Americans each year, this process is used to treat degenerative disk disease, serious back injury and scoliosis.
Damaged spinal disks are removed and replaced with bone grafts. The body then heals the grafts over several months to form a single bone--similar to healing a fracture.
Metal screws and rods keep vertebrae in position while bone grafts heal.
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The artifical disk
Tears, scar tissue and loss of water content can weaken spinal disks, which cushion the spine between each of its 24 vertebrae. The Charite Artificial Disc, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Spine Inc., is designed to relieve the pain of degenerative disk disease - which occurs primarily in the two lowest disks - while restoring the freedom of movement that fusion does not.
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How it works
Patients with the implanted disk have a range of motion of 10 degrees in all directions, the same range as with healthy natural disks. The plastic core slides back and forth between the plates in the opposite direction of the patient’s movement.
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Sources: Dr. John Regan, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; DePuy Spine Inc.;
North American Spine Society. Graphics reporting by Joel Greenberg
