The Design Evolution of Interbody Cages in ACDF
The Design Evolution of Interbody Cages in ACDF
180 abstracts were searched for relevance and, of these, 64 articles were selected for analysis. Articles were selected based on their detail and relevance to the topic of cage design; both clinical and laboratory studies were included. Laboratory studies comparing cage designs and materials that were controlled and reliable were utilised to inform theoretical advantages of specific designs. The inclusion criteria of clinical studies were prospective and retrospective designss with patients requiring ACDF in the treatment of degenerative cervical disease, patient cohorts larger than 30 individual pati, implanting cages filled with allograft with or without anterior plating. Exclusion criteria included studies with non-degenerative disease cohorts, using additional proteins to promote fusion and ossification, or those that did not report on fusion rates, clinical outcomes and/or complication rates. In addition, the search was extended by manually searching the reference sections of relevant articles; this added 12 publications (See Additional file 2: Table S1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2474/16/99/additional).
Results
180 abstracts were searched for relevance and, of these, 64 articles were selected for analysis. Articles were selected based on their detail and relevance to the topic of cage design; both clinical and laboratory studies were included. Laboratory studies comparing cage designs and materials that were controlled and reliable were utilised to inform theoretical advantages of specific designs. The inclusion criteria of clinical studies were prospective and retrospective designss with patients requiring ACDF in the treatment of degenerative cervical disease, patient cohorts larger than 30 individual pati, implanting cages filled with allograft with or without anterior plating. Exclusion criteria included studies with non-degenerative disease cohorts, using additional proteins to promote fusion and ossification, or those that did not report on fusion rates, clinical outcomes and/or complication rates. In addition, the search was extended by manually searching the reference sections of relevant articles; this added 12 publications (See Additional file 2: Table S1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2474/16/99/additional).
