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Assessment of Bone Growth Stimulator Is Mixed

"This is a very potent substance, and I don't think anyone doubts that it works, but we don't know what dosages are right in each area, and we don't know if it's the right thing to do economically," said Dr. Douglas Burton, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City.

And Dr. Richard Fessler, chief of surgery and a neurosurgeon at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit, said that the study's finding "underscores why off-label use shouldn't be performed indiscriminately."

"We've increased the cost of this procedure, but we're unsure of the effect of BMP in the long term," Fessler said.

BMP -- a protein that the body naturally makes that tells stem cells to form bone -- was approved in 2002 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in spinal fusion surgeries in the lower back area. Because it promotes bone growth, BMP appears to be helpful in fusion surgeries because it may speed the process and possibly reduce the need for a second operation.

"When you do a fusion, you take out the disc and then you put in a graft so the bones fuse together," Cahill explained. "BMP accelerates this fusion.

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