Case Report

IMMUNE RESPONSE TO TITANIUM SPINAL PEDICULAR IMPLANTS

  • Serdar ATAİZİ
  • Onur UYSAL
  • Erdal YAYLA
  • Murat BALOĞLU
  • Ahmet ÇEREZCİ
  • Faruk ALTINEL
  • Ahmet TURAN

J Turk Spinal Surg 2009;20(2):69-76

The titanium transpedicular implants that uses in vertebra fracture surgery are supply vertebra reduction until bone healing and fusion became. Because of these implants after surgery in early and late periods various problems can be seen. The most typical problems are connected with; instrument choice, fusion problems, infection, implant failure, and pseudoarthrosis. Also the reaction of immune response is a rare problem.

53 year old woman operated because of L3 fracture. 8 week after surgery the patient begin to complain about pain that occurs both in rest and movement. Patient admitted to clinic and began to research for pain. There was no pathology in radiology and laboratory.

We decided for revision surgery. In surgery zone we met granulation that was wrapping the implant environment. We took sample for electron microscopy. Titanium particles that spill around implant causes chronic inflammation. This inflammation detected in electron microscopy. We suggested that this event is a immune reaction to foreign substances. We discuss this rare case with literature documents.

Keywords: Instrumentation, titanium, immune response, histopathological investigation