There is a new study comparing Titan Spine's Endoskeleton TA device with PEEK presented at the International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery.
Here are five things to know about the study:
1. Titan's TA device had a 410 percent reduction in subsidence rate and a 40 percent reduction in the overall subsidence amount as compared to an ALIF PEEK implant with a similar footprint.
2. The study refutes a common thought that subsidence is purely a function of an interbody device's material modulus and that PEEK implants will subside less than titanium devices due to PEEK's closer modulus to the vertebral body.
3. Titan's Endoskeleton devices include the company's proprietary implant surface technology which consists of a unique combination of roughened topographies at the macro, micro and cellular levels.
5. The subsidence is a function of more than the implant's material modulus, but also involves the device design, according to the study.
"Our study replicated this clinical condition and demonstrated that Titan's titanium TA implant resulted in a statistically slower and more gradual settling upon the endplate surface, producing a 'soft landing,' whereas the PEEK implant had a statistically increased settling rate and overall subsidence amount," said lead study author Andonio Valdevit, PhD, department of chemical engineering and materials sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology. "The PEEK implant's 'hard landing' may be the result of its anti-expulsion teeth that distributed the overall compressive force over a smaller contract area as compared to Titan's roughened macro surface."