The researchers examined 80 patients with degenerative disc disease that underwent instrumented lumbar or lumbosacral PLF in this prospective, randomized, controlled and blinded study. There were 40 cases where PLF was done with spongious allograft chips alone and 40 where the surgeons used spinous allograft chips mixed with BMC that included mesenchymal stem cells.
At the 12 month follow up, none of the BMC alone patients achieved fusion. Four achieved fusion at 24 months. There were six cases that showed fusion in the BMC and allograft patients at 12 months, and 14 at 24 months.
“The use of autologous MSCs in the form of the BMC in combination with allograft is an effective option how to enhance the PLF healing,” concluded the authors.
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