Infuse Bone Graft rhBMP-2: The new future of bone growth

Infuse Bone Graft rhBMP-2 is the latest in bone fusion technology and represents a revolutionary new approach to spinal fusion surgery. Infuse bone graft contains a genetically engineered version of a protein that occurs naturally. This protein has been isolated in the laboratory and then purified and reproduced using recombinant DNA technology. The resulting recombinant human protein is known as rhBMP-2, and when combined with an absorbable collagen sponge, is marketed by Medtronic Sofamor Danek under the trade name Infuse Bone Graft.

More than 40 years ago, orthopedic surgeons determined that the protein extracts required for bone to heal, or regenerate, in the body were contained within the bone itself. So the question is, if our bones already regenerate themselves why not just use an autograft and leave it be? For the readers information an autograft is the transplantation of organs, tissues or even proteins from one part of the body to another in the same individual. For many years that is exactly what many neurosurgeons did, until a man in 1979 named Dr. Marshall Urist, a professor in the department Orthopedic Surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine coined the term “bone morphogenetic protein” (BMP) to describe these proteins. Dr. Urist and other scientists found that for BMP to work they would have to isolate one protein (BMP-2) from the bone tissue and use DNA technology to create genetically engineered cells, which after completion was called recombinant human BMP-2 (rhBMP-2). This was brilliant, because now the cells that they created could create pure BMP-2 protein, which is what is needed for our bones to grow.

This new quasi-synthetic known as Infuse Bone Graft rhbmp-2 became the “gold standard” (meaning it is equal or better than autograft). Infuse became the only product ever to be equal and or better than the patients own bone at remodeling itself. Infuse is one hundred times stronger than your own bone at doing this. Now people who develop degenerative disc disease (DDD) have a more comfortable way of dealing with their pain. Patients will not have to endure two separate surgeries, one having to harvest the bone from their hip (autograft) and the second having the bone placed in the spine. It can be done with one simple surgery.

Would someone call this technology genius or revolutionary? It did receive the Prix Galien award the past two years. The Prix Galien award is an award that was created to promote advances in pharmaceutical research. So one might say it is genius. How about revolutionary? Chapter three of our text Culture + Technology discusses two hypothesis that Langdon Winner used to explain technological determinism. The second hypothesis says “that belief that technological change is the single most important source of change in society.” In other words the development of Infuse is revolutionary to a technological determinist. I guess the real answer to the question though lays beneath the blade of the surgeon.