Diabetes increases the risk that spinal fusion surgery will fail Diabetics are nearly three times more likely to have vertebrae fail to fuse together They also are more than twice as likely to have other places along the spine degenerate following the surgery FRIDAY, July 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- can make lumbar spinal fusion surgery much more likely to fail, a new study says. People with diabetes are nearly three times more likely to have their vertebrae fail to properly heal and fuse together, what surgeons call a non-union complication, according to results recently published in the journal . “A lot of times the bones simply aren’t fusing,” researcher , chief of spine surgery at the University of Toledo Medical Center, said in a news release.
Diabetics are also more than twice as likely to experience additional degeneration in places along the spine next to the spinal fusion site, a complication that usually requires extensive additional surgery, researchers said. Diabetes appears to affect bone growth and healing following a spinal fusion, researchers said. In the procedure, surgeons use screws, rods and bone grafts to join two or more vertebrae together.
As the area heals, the bones should fuse solidly together, restricting motion and relieving back pain. Unfortunately, diabetes appears to hamper that healing process. “Diabetes is a metabolic disease, but it’s also a bone disease,” researcher , a professor of orthopedics at the University of Toledo, said .