There’s no doubt that the bone graft delivery system has revolutionized bone graft surgery. Unlike the traditional graft delivery systems that utilized several graft delivery devices — bone funnel, syringe, and the cannula — today’s Graft Delivery System (GDS®) utilizes a single Graftgun® to deliver graft material to a surgical site. Overall, using the Graftgun® is beneficial to the patient receiving the bone graft and the surgeon performing the bone graft surgery.
Here’s how bone graft delivery systems benefit a patient undergoing bone graft surgery.
Patients receive bone grafts mainly because of the following four reasons.
All these procedures require a surgeon to make deep incisions to reach the damaged bones. Using traditional graft delivery devices, a surgeon may have to make deeper and larger incisions to execute bone grafting safely. If the bone grafting procedure utilizes allograft as the bone graft material, the doctor may have to make multiple incisions on a patient. Using the modern graft delivery devices such as the Graftgun®, surgeons only make a shallow incision because the Graftgun® has an elongated and flexible tube that can dispense bone graft in hard to reach inter-body cages. This makes the overall bone graft surgery minimally invasive and less painful to the patient.
Because the Graftgun® makes the graft delivery process more accurate and efficient, the risks associated with bone graft surgery are contained or eliminated. These include inflammation, nerve injury, bone graft rejection, and reabsorption of bone graft. When these complications happen during bone grafting, the healing time is longer and more painful. Additionally, because the Graftgun® facilitates a minimally invasive surgical process, the surgical wounds will take less time to heal.
Here’s how surgeons benefit from a modern bone graft delivery system.
Take, for instance, the Graftgun® that allows for single-handed use. Using the Graftgun®, a surgeon can simultaneously use other surgical instruments, making the surgical process more stable and balanced. Additionally, the Graftgun® has a tactile feel that allows surgeons to determine when sufficient bone graft amounts have been dispensed to the void spaces. The well-calibrated flexible tube of the Graftgun® delivers about .25cc of orthobiologic per every squeeze. This allows the surgeon to determine the exact amount of bone graft delivered to the damaged bones. Bone grafting calls for high accuracy, especially when dispensing bone graft. If you deliver insufficient amounts of bone graft, there may be endplate failure and nonunion. These conditions will cause excessive pain to a bone graft patient.
The modern bone graft delivery systems come packed in air-tight packages that keep them germs-free. Additionally, because the graft delivery device is designed for single-use, the surgeons can easily dispose it of after the surgery. You don’t need to sterilize the Graftgun® before or after the bone grafting surgery. Not only will this reduce your sterilization costs, but it will also save you a lot of productive time.
Undoubtedly, bone graft delivery systems have improved bone graft surgery by making it more effective, accurate, faster, and minimally invasive. Using modern bone graft delivery devices, surgeons can successfully execute complex bone grafting procedures, such as spinal fusion, with more ease and accuracy. It’s the reason more surgeons are abandoning the traditional bone graft delivery devices in favor of the Graftgun®. The modern Graft Delivery Systems (GDS®) benefit both the patients and the surgeons. Patients experience less pain during the surgery, while surgeons perform bone grafting with much more ease and accuracy.