Bone Growth Stimulation

PEMF Bone Growth Stimulation

Pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) bone growth stimulation is a safe, non-surgical treatment prescribed by a physician to promote healing after a lumbar spinal fusion, or to treat a failed fusion with the goal of avoiding a refusion surgery.

Low back pain is a common and often debilitating problem that results in about 300,000 lumbar spine fusions annually.¹ The lumbar regions is known to be difficult and slow to heal, with as many as one-third of all fusion cases ending in a failed fusion (pseudarthrosis)^2-6 despite advances in methodology and instrumentation.

Electrical currents have been used to heal bones since the mid-1800s. However, it wasn’t until the 1950s that scientists made the important discovery that when human bone is bent or broken, it generates an electrical field. This electrical field activates the body's own repair mechanism which, in turn, stimulates bone healing.

Orthofix PEMF bone growth stimulators generate a uniform, low-level, pulsed electromagnetic field similar to the electrical field generated by the body. The application of PEMF over the fusion site helps activate and augment the body’s natural healing process which may be impaired or absent in some patients with risk factors to bone fusion.

Learn more about how the Orthofix Spinal-Stim improved fusion success by 22% (a 35% improvement)⁷ by reviewing Spinal -Stim clinical data.

References

1. iData Research Inc. 2010
2. Lane, JM and Muschler, GF, “Spinal Fusion: Principles of Bone Fusion in The Spine,” Third Edition, edited by RH Rothman and FA Simeone, WB Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1992, Vol 2, p 1739.
3. Mooney, V, “A Randomized Double-Blind Prospective Study of the Efficacy of Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields for Interbody Lumbar Fusions,” Spine, Vol 15, No 72, 1990, pp 511-523.
4. Kane, WJ, “Direct Current Electrical Bone Growth Stimulation for Spinal Fusion,” Spine, Vol 13, No 3, 1988, p 363.
5. Sims, WA, “Experience with Electrical Bone Growth Stimulation in Back Fusions,” presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Clinical Orthopaedic Society, 1985.
6. Dwyer, AF, “Direct Current Stimulation in Spinal Fusion,” Medical Journal of Australia, Vol 1, No 1, 1974, p 73.
7. Mooney, V., MD, Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields: An Adjunct to Interbody Spinal Fusion Surgery in the High Risk Patient, Surgical Technology International II, 405-410, 1993.