FAQ

Minimally invasive spine surgery results in reduced blood loss, lower postoperative narcotic consumption, and preservation of paraspinal muscles. By dilating rather than stripping the posterior musculature, the procedure maintains physiologic lumbar stability and may reduce the risk of adjacent-level disease over time.

The ACTIFUSE MIS system is a pistol-grip applicator with a 200 mm working length and 8 mm outside diameter that delivers 0.5 mL of graft per trigger squeeze. It allows precise placement around cages and screws through small incisions, with bayonet-fit refill cartridges that can be swapped mid-case without disrupting workflow.

Ready-to-use formats like ACTIFUSE FLOW and ACTIFUSE ABX eliminate mixing delays and preparation time in the operating room, reducing non-surgical time and allowing surgeons to focus on the procedure. This efficiency benefits both surgical workflow and hospital operational costs.

In minimally invasive surgery, surgeons have limited visual and tactile feedback, so they cannot manually adjust graft placement with their fingers like in open surgery. Every millimeter of placement matters because graft delivered through narrow corridors must make intimate contact with the decorticated bone bed, and gaps or misplacement can lead to resorption before fusion forms.

Advanced delivery platforms like ACTIFUSE MIS and ALTAPORE MIS systems are engineered for narrow surgical corridors and provide steady, predictable graft flow with fingertip control over volume and trajectory. Moldable solutions like ACTIFUSE SHAPE and ALTAPORE SHAPE allow surgeons to conform to irregular anatomy while maintaining precision of placement.

Elite Surgical Technologies' ALTAPORE Bioactive Bone Graft has demonstrated 86.3% fusion rates when paired with precision implantation in posterolateral fusion procedures. Surgeons report reduced revision rates, earlier bridging bone on radiographs, and fewer radiolucent lines around the graft mass compared to less precise placement techniques.

Autograft requires a second surgical site for bone harvesting, which prolongs operative time and frequently causes donor-site morbidity including chronic pain, infection, and hematoma. Additionally, complex cases often require more bone than can be safely harvested, limiting surgical options.

Clinical evidence shows that advanced bone graft substitutes like ALTAPORE and ACTIFUSE deliver fusion rates comparable to or exceeding autograft. ALTAPORE has demonstrated an 86.3% fusion rate at 12 months without requiring a second incision or donor-site complications.

Modern substitutes provide minimally invasive delivery systems for precise placement, moldable formulations that adapt to unique surgical contours, and predictable handling with engineered resorption profiles. These features reduce tissue disruption, operative time, and recovery duration while standardizing approach across different surgical cases.

Traditional autografts and allografts are largely passive, while ACTIFUSE and ALTAPORE are bioactive silicate substituted calcium phosphate constructs that actively participate in the healing cascade. Their optimized porosity of 80% or higher creates an interconnected scaffold that supports osteoconductivity, cell infiltration, and vascularization, with resorption rates tuned to mirror new bone formation.

Modern bioactive materials like ACTIFUSE and ALTAPORE require different delivery systems, handling characteristics, and intraoperative workflows than traditional autograft. Surgeons must learn precise hydration ratios, manipulation timing, and placement pressure specific to moldable and minimally invasive formats, as proficiency directly correlates with fusion rates and patient outcomes.

ALTAPORE Bioactive Bone Graft has demonstrated 86.3% fusion rates at 12 months in spinal applications, rivaling or exceeding traditional autograft benchmarks while eliminating donor site pain. These results are reproducible and clinically proven, providing surgeons with evidence-based confidence in material selection and improved patient outcomes.