Novel autograft bone harvesting device used in 232 consecutive patients who underwent cervical or lumbar fusion: initial experience, outcome, and cost analysis in a retrospective study.

Background: As healthcare becomes more expensive, hospitals and providers need to develop "value engineering" as a method to deliver the same quality of care for a lower cost. One key concept is to look at the entire cost of a procedure and begin to reduce costs one at a time within that procedure. We developed the BDC-15 as a method to harvest high quality bone graft and at a low cost while maintaining excellent results. Methods: In this study, we present the first series of patients who underwent cervical fusion and lumbar fusion using exclusively the BDC-15 without any additional allograft. Results: A total of 232 patients were entered into the study with 107 patients undergoing anterior cervical fusion surgery (one-, two-, or three-level) and 125 patients undergoing posterior lumbar fusion surgery (one- or two-level). Patients were followed for a mean of 13.4 months assessing fusion. For the cervical group, 95.3% of patients were fused at 6 months and for the lumbar group, 92% of patients were fused at 12 months. Complication rate was 4.7% (11 patients) due to admission for post-operative pain (6 patients), wound infection (3 patients), and hardware failure (2 patients). Average cost savings across all groups was $441,850 or approximately $1,904 per patient. Conclusions: Autograft results in acceptable fusion rates and patient outcomes at a fraction of the cost of Allograft.