A Medium Viscous Acrylic Cement Enhances Uniformity of CementFilling and Reduces Leakage in Cancellous Bone Augmentation

Vertebroplasty is an efficient procedure to treat osteoporotic vertebral fractures. Cement leakage is considered to be the most severe complication during vertebroplasty. At high cement viscosities, the risk of leakage is reduced. However, injection forces are highly increased, requiring the use of high force injection systems with the lack in tactile force feedback. Therefore, an acrylic cement was developed showing medium initial viscosity and which still allows to be manually applied using syringes. An established model favoring leakage was used to observe the filling pattern and leaked cement mass. The method used included the simulation of body temperature, and all materials submitted are approved medical products. When applied just after preparation, the medium viscous cement resulted in good cement filling and less cement leakage than low viscosity cement. The added clinical value of the new cement is that the waiting time for the physician will be shortened to zero minutes without compromising the safety for the procedure.