reading through the pubmed abstracts and came across this article again (about heterotopic ossification with prodisc-C - see first post in this thread).
I'd definitely be interested to know if anyone has gotten any further information from surgeons that do these procedures on whether there are any measures to counter this problem. Also its fair to say that without knowing the background of the study its hard to know how useful the results are, however its also true that similar studies in relation to other cervical prosthesis (e.g. bryan) have also showed results of this nature, so it sounds like HO is real in that it is something that occurs - but what level of impact it has is another question.
One surgeon I spoke to said that they prescribe NSAIDS after the surgery to help reduce early bone growth. I'd be interested to know if there are chemicals (almost the 'opposite' of bmp I suppose) that could be used during surgery to prevent HO in certain areas.
Also for those that have had a cervical prodisc-C - have you had x-rays at 1 or 2 year followup and what did they show?
Finally - it seems that even if there is a high incidence of HO, the patients are still doing ok - i.e. there are other studies that show patient satisfaction scores etc. one or two years on that still show good results. So this possibly comes back to the most important thing about a surgery being succesful decompression of the nerves causing the problems (spinal cord or peripheral nerves) without damaging them during the surgical process. And if this is acheived then the likelihood of a good outcome is high regardless of the implant used. Similarly quality of placement of the implant by the surgeon etc. selection of appropriate heights etc. etc. would all be factors - possibly more so than the actual 'thing' put in place.
i.e. on that basis it might be that the surgeon rather than the implant is the key determiner of the result. If this were the case it would also arguably still be a reason for travelling/expense to visit a surgeon with consistently good results.
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snowboarding injury 1997 landed on head, some subluxation of cervical vertebrae no surgery, some ongoing neck and shoulder pain but bearable.
surfing injury 2004 - transient paralysis from neck down for 15 seconds, resolved fully - herniated c5/c6 disc plus some bulging at c3/4/5. Initially had dermatome pain after injury which resolved - general parasthesia in arms/legs was fairly mild after injury but has been worsening.
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