Medtronic’s Infuse No Better Than Bone Graft With Risk
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Medtronic Inc.’s Infuse, designed to help bones heal after spinal surgery, works no better than a graft and carries side effects including an increased risk of cancer, two independent reviews found.
The studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine may help doctors weigh when to recommend the product, used in more than 1 million patients. The $2.5 million review of Infuse was commissioned by Minneapolis-based Medtronic in 2011 after the product’s risk-benefit profile was called into question by research linking it to male sterility, infections and cancer.