Emerging therapies for back pain
By Mayo Clinic staffResearch continues into therapies that may effectively treat chronic low back pain and that may eliminate drawbacks of some of the current treatment methods. Here's one therapy that's receiving a lot of attention:
Disk replacement therapy
This method may be an alternative to spinal fusion that may be able to reduce pain without limiting the flexibility of your spine. In this approach, your surgeon uses a device to replace all or part of a damaged or collapsed disk that is the source of your low back pain. The replacement disk may be made of metal or plastic or a combination of the two materials.
By replacing a disk, the proper height of the disk is restored, as is the proper spacing between the adjacent vertebrae. The procedure may result in pain reduction by relieving nerve compression, allowing greater range of back motion and a higher level of functioning. Disk replacement has gathered attention in part because of some of the drawbacks of spinal fusion, which include less mobility and the possibility of degeneration of areas around the fusion. Some early studies have shown that results of disk replacement therapy compare favorably to those of fusion. But it's still too early to know the long-term outcomes of this procedure.
Other emerging therapies
Other therapies in the exploratory phase as a way of preserving back motion, relieving pain or being less invasive than either spinal fusion or disk replacement include:
- Dynamic stabilization. This surgical process uses flexible materials to stabilize an unstable segment of the spine without actually fusing one segment of the spine to another. This preserves greater motion.
- Biological solutions. This approach involves development of biological proteins, such as bone morphogenetic protein (BMP), that can help stimulate bone growth. This could make surgical procedures such as spinal fusion more effective.
- Gene therapy. Gene therapy involves the transfer of genetic material into target cells, such as those of a spinal disk. This procedure holds great promise as a new tool in the future treatment of disk regeneration.
