Five-year data on the Barricaid spinal implant shows it's effective in preventing reherniation and reoperation following lumbar discectomy.
Five things to know:
1.The Barricaid implant was developed by Intrinsic Therapeutics and has a polyester flap to close the tear in the disc and a jagged anchor that inserts into the bone to hold it in place.
2. Researchers followed 554 patients in a randomized superiority trial. The data published in JAMA Network Open on Dec. 9 found the risks of symptomatic reherniation and reoperation were lower in patients who had the Barricade implant. Scores for leg pain severity, the Oswestry Disability Index, and health-related quality of life all improved over five years.
3. The frequency of serious adverse events in the group with the device was lower compared with the control group. There was a 12 percent rate of adverse events in the device group and a 20.5 percent rate in the control group.
4. "The five-year follow-up analysis makes it clear that lumbar discectomies are not as benign as we originally thought," the study's principal investigator, Claudius Thomé, said in a Jan. 25 news release. "The JAMA study results conclusively show high-risk lumbar discectomy patients treated with Barricaid are less likely to suffer reherniation and reoperation than those patients treated with discectomy alone."
5. Previous studies of the device back up claims Barricaid can reduce the chance of disc reherniation 10 to 11 percent.