Pullout evaluation of sawbone experiment in different types of pedicle screws combined with bone cement augmentation for severe osteoporotic spine.

PURPOSE: The conventional screw is unable to provide enough screw-bone interface strength for osteoporotic cencellous bone, and complications resulting from loosening or failure of the implants remain a significant clinical problem. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate pullout strength and energy in three types of the pedicle screws, including conventional solid pedicle screw, cannulated pedicle screw, and cannulated pedicle screw with a central pin, using osteoporotic sawbone test block with different bone cement volumes through pullout force testing.

METHODS: The control group (n = 15) of the osteoporotic sawbone test block includes groups A, B, and C to reflect three types of the pedicle screws without bone cement augmentation. The cemented group (n = 45) of the osteoporotic sawbone test block includes groups D1, D2, D3, E1, E2, E3, F1, F2, and F3 to reflect three types of the pedicle screws with PMMA bone cement of 2, 3, and 4 mL augmentation.

RESULTS: The results showed that the pullout strength and energy in the cemented group were significantly larger than that in the control group. Moreover, the best performances of the pullout strength and energy in the cemented group were evidenced obviously in the case of cannulated pedicle screw with a central pin with 4 mL bone cement augmentation.

CONCLUSIONS: This study concludes that cement argumentation in the cannulated pedicle screw with a central pin can increase a pullout strength of pedicle screw for severe osteoporotic patients while bone cement of injective volume is limited.