New, flexible scaffold for multi-level posterolateral fusion procedures

Nov 11 2009

Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT) today announced the full U.S. market release of MASTERGRAFT^® Strip – a new, highly flexible ceramic scaffold intended for use in combination with a patient’s own bone for fusing multiple levels of the posterolateral spine.

The full market release was announced today at the 24th Annual meeting of the North American Spine Society (NASS) in San Francisco. MASTERGRAFT Strip was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year and has been clinically evaluated by surgeons for a variety of bone grafting procedures with outstanding intraoperative performance.

MASTERGRAFT Strip provides surgeons with a bone grafting option that offers a continuous latticework for longer grafting procedures at the back of the spine, which are often performed when the spine loses stability or its natural shape. The product’s broad geometric design maximizes bony surface area contact and allows for continuous bone growth over large bony gaps. The product comes in unique lengths that eliminate the need to utilize multiple units of a synthetic product for a long fusion. The combination of these handling characteristics and the features common to all MASTERGRAFT^® Products provides surgeons with a synthetic graft that has all the necessary qualities of a scaffold for multi-level posterolateral fusion procedures.

According to Dr. Donald Kucharzyk, one of the clinical evaluators, the new MASTERGRAFT Strip “provides the flexibility and ease of use that greatly simplifies my operative technique.” Other surgeons who have clinically evaluated the product have been equally impressed with its length and ease of handling during implantation.

Source: Medtronic, Inc.