What bone graft will be used in my spinal fusion?
Most patients never find out there was a choice. There is, and it can decide whether bone gets harvested from your hip. We are Elite Surgical, the regional supplier of ACTIFUSE bone graft.
Your surgeon picks one of four grafts
Your own bone, harvested from your hip in a second incision. Donor bone from a bone bank. BMP-2, a $900 to $5,500 biologic protein. Or a synthetic like ACTIFUSE, minerals your body replaces with real bone.
They all can work. They differ in what they cost you: a second wound, a biologic, or nothing extra. That difference is worth one question in your pre-op appointment.
Same fusion rate as the expensive biologic, less reported pain, no hip harvest
An independent Johns Hopkins review of 694 patients: 93% fusion, statistically the same as BMP-2. The randomized trial, 103 patients, manufacturer funded and disclosed: less reported back pain at every check-up, significant at six months.
And the same review found ACTIFUSE alone matched ACTIFUSE mixed with harvested hip bone. In a 290-patient series, 49% of harvest patients still had pain at the hip site, a quarter of them calling it severe. Skipping that incision is the benefit you can feel.
No graft is proven to fuse better than the rest
ACTIFUSE ties BMP-2 on fusion rates. It has never been tested head-to-head against the other synthetics in humans. The surgery, the surgeon, your health, and smoking all matter more than the graft. Any company claiming their graft is proven to fuse better is selling you something.
We put that in writing because your surgeon will check, and because the honest version is still a good one: same destination, fewer things that can go wrong on the way.
Five questions for your pre-op appointment
Bring the one-page surgeon summary with you. It is written for your surgeon, cites the studies, and takes them sixty seconds.
- What bone graft are you planning to use, and why that one?
- Will you need to take bone from my hip? What happens if we do not?
- What is your fusion rate for this operation?
- What happens if it does not fuse?
- Have you used ACTIFUSE? What did you think of it?
One sentence protects you: "What graft are you using, and why?"
Elite Surgical Technologies supplies ACTIFUSE to hospitals across Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and the Pittsburgh area. If your surgeon wants the data, we deliver it same day.