Ortho Kinematics, Inc. (OKI) and Medtronic, Inc. have joined up to promote OKI’s Vertebral Motion Analysis (VMA) test to spine surgeons.
Medtronic To Promote Ortho Kinematics’ VMA Diagnostic Test
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Vertebral Motion Analysis Test
The VMA is a diagnostic test for the spine that uses fluoroscopy to capture the spine in motion, producing patient-specific graphs for each vertebral level.
A September 16, 2014 announcement from OKI states the motion analysis diagnostic test can be prescribed as an alternative to the six million flexion/extension x-ray tests that are prescribed each year in the U.S. for the assessment of spinal motion and instability in the cervical and lumbar spine.
“The VMA has been shown in studies to produce more accurate and reproducible results than the traditional manual x-ray test, detecting spinal instability with greater sensitivity and with no decrease in specificity. Spinal instability is a condition that may contribute to back and neck pain, and is an important consideration in evaluating candidates for potential spine surgery or spine pain management injections, ” stated the announcement.
According to the company it recently completed a successful 18 month limited scale initial launch of the test.
OKI’s CEO, Paul Gunoe said, “The VMA’s initial launch was a success and with this partnership we expect to build on this by making the VMA the potential standard of care for assessing spinal motion and instability. Having a partner and investor with the reputation, scale, and reach of Medtronic will be helpful to these efforts.”
Seeking to Become a New Standard
Unlike the market for spine surgical technology which is characterized by hundreds of companies and thousands of products, the company says the market for spine diagnostics is comprised of a small handful of on-market and development-stage products. “Most market analysts agree that diagnostics represents an area of strong growth potential within the spine surgery category, and within spine imaging diagnostics OKI is recognized as a market leader. The global revenue potential for the VMA is over $5 billion, ” continued the company statement.
The Austin, Texas, privately held company’s goal is to replace the current method of detecting spinal dysfunction and become the standard of care for spine functional testing.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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