Dr. Marshall Urist: Pioneer in Spinal Fusion Baltimore MD

One reason that spinal fusion Baltimore MD has become even more effective as a treatment for many diseases such as scoliosis and spinal stenosis is because of the work of Dr. Marshall Urist, who was a pioneering educator and clinician UCLA, starting in 1954.  Dr. Urist was both a physician and a researcher.  He was the editor-in-chief of the medical journal, Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research for almost 30 years.   He published over 400 articles on orthopedic surgery and related issues during his career, and won a plethora of prestigious awards both nationally and internationally.

The discovery and identifications of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) is a strong competitor to be Dr. Urist's most impressive and beneficial achievement.  Bone morphogenetic proteins are substances that are naturally present in every human body.  The work of Dr. Urist isolated them and determined that they could be used for healing breaks in bones.  He found that their use could also be applied to spinal fusion surgery Baltimore MD.

BMPs for Spinal Fusion Procedures Baltimore

Spinal fusion surgeries seek to fuse two or more vertebrae at some location in the spine into a singular, rigid, unit of bone.  This may be done for many reasons, including both traumatic injuries, degenerative bone diseases and deformities in the spine that occur from birth.  Under normal circumstances, some bone material would be needed to add into the spine at the point(s) where it is desired to fuse vertebrae.  These would generally have to be collected as a self-donation from the femur of the patient having the fusion, or as a post-humous donation from a cadaver.

There are inherent problems with both of these methods of retrieving donor bone tissue.  A self-donation, or autograft, is known to create a secondary surgical site that can be very painful and difficult to heal.  A shortage of organ donors has made cadaver bone somewhat scarce.  Because of Dr. Urist's work, it is now possible to fuse vertebrae together in the spine as needed using BMPs only.  The BMP method of spinal fusion does still have some limitations.  It is worthwhile to learn about these limitations before assuming that BMP is an option for all types of spinal fusion operations.