A new study published in Clinical Spine Surgery examined the factors in bone morphogenetic protein use from 2005 to 2015.
The study authors examined the Medicare 5% National Sample Database and Humana Orthopaedics database for patients who underwent spinal fusion with BMP. Study authors included 12,598 patients who underwent the procedure.
Here are three observations.
1. Among patients 65 years old, the BMP use was 11.02 patients per 100,000 members in the Medicare database and 58.91 patients per 100,000 members in the Humana database.
2. The BMP rate was similar from 2005 to 2012 for the Medicare database, and there was a trend toward lower BMP use in the Humana database from 2007 to 2015.
3. The BMP rate was higher among private pay patients when compared with Medicare patients.