NuVasive, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, California, has announced the initial uses of Cohere XLIF, the first-of-its-kind lateral Porous PEEK implant for XLIF (eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion) and lateral single-position surgery.
NuVasive’s Lateral Porous PEEK has 1st-in-Man
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According to NuVasive, “Cohere XLIF is the first product launch for XLIF and lateral single-position surgery applications using Porous PEEK technology. NuVasive is the only medical device company to offer porous interbody technology across both PEEK (Cohere and Coalesce) and titanium materials (Modulus implant family), thereby addressing the spectrum of surgeons’ needs and preferences for interbody implants.”
“The Porous PEEK technology featured in Cohere implants is designed to facilitate bone in-growth and has been shown to promote improved early clinical outcomes over smooth PEEK and allograft implants. Cohere implants are manufactured through a proprietary extrusion process which results in a unified and durable porous-to-solid structure.”
One of the first surgeons to use Cohere XLIF was Frank M. Phillips, M.D., professor and director of the Division of Spine Surgery, section head of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, and fellowship co-director of Spine Surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
He described his experience to OTW, “It is exciting to add the Cohere XLIF implant to our armamentarium to improve patient outcomes. This cage provides the advantages of ideal stiffness and excellent radiographic visualization of fusion progress, as well as robust science validating the advantages of Porous PEEK in providing surface architecture that was designed to allow bone in-growth.”
“PEEK has been shown to have the ideal modulus of elasticity for encouraging bone growth and fusion. Porous PEEK allows for this feature with the additional advantage of promoting bony ingrowth through the porous surface structure of the cage.”
Asked for details on the radiographic visualization, Dr. Phillips said, “Recently, metallic interbody cages have gained some popularity. Unfortunately, with these metal cages it is exceedingly difficult to assess for bony fusion on either plane radiographs or CT scans. In contradistinction, PEEK allows for clear visualization of bone growth and fusion through the cage.”
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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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