Abstract:

BACKGROUND: The spinal fusion is used extensively in the treatment of the lumbar degenerative disease. But there were a series of the symptoms such as lumbar destabilization, change of lumbar dynamics, accelerated degeneration of adiacent segment and spinal stenosis by massive clinical observations.
OBJECTIVE: To review the clinical application of non-fusion internal fixation in treating lumbar degenerative disease.
METHODS: The PubMed database was researched by computer to search documents published between January 1997 and December 2009 with key words of “lumbar spinal fusion, destabilization, non-rigid fixation” in English. Totally 84 papers were selected.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Lumbar spinal fusion is still the standard method for treating lumbar instability, however, lumbar spinal fusion may accelerate the degeneration of adjacent segment, and the lumbar fusion rate was not proportional to clinical satisfactory rate. There is no quantitative standard for evaluating range of intervertebral motion, but the ideal dynamical fixation should guarantee the spinal stabilization and recover the range of motion to the largest extent. Recently, a large number of studies concerning non-fusion fixation technology have been performed in China and abroad. Non-fusion internal fixation is a surgery method for treating lumbar degenerative disease which meets physiological need and reduces a series of harmful complications. This method can avoid fusion of degenerative segment.