Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Aug 18, 2020; 11(8): 345-356
Published online Aug 18, 2020. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v11.i8.345
Lumbar and cervical viscoelastic disc replacement: Concepts and current experience
Jean Yves Lazennec
Jean Yves Lazennec, Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Paris F-75013, France
Author contributions: Lazennec JY solely completed this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jean Yves Lazennec, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, 47 Blvd Hop, Paris F-75013, France. lazennec.jy@wanadoo.fr
Received: April 3, 2020
Peer-review started: April 3, 2020
First decision: April 22, 2020
Revised: May 23, 2020
Accepted: July 19, 2020
Article in press: July 19, 2020
Published online: August 18, 2020
Core Tip

Core tip: Although all artificial discs are intended to achieve the same aims, there is considerable heterogeneity in the design of lumbar and cervical implants. The “second generation total disc replacements” are non-articulating viscoelastic implants aiming at the reconstruction of physiologic levels of shock absorption and flexural stiffness. This review aims to give an overview of the available implants. We herein discuss the new challenges concerning the choice of materials, the connection between the components of the internal structure and the metal endplates and even the bone anchoring mode. We discuss the consequences of the different technological choices and we emphasize the special features to watch out for when monitoring these implants in the future.