Bionic Back with the Charité disc

200000 people go trough lower-back surgery every year. For the future patients, a solution is on the horizon.

The Charité Artificial Disc is expected to be approved by the FDA before the end of 2004.

The disc is made of polyethylene and cobalt-chromium (metal), is replacing a lower-back disc. Polyethylene is already used with success for knee and joints prosthesis.

“This is the first major breakthrough in back surgery since the 1940s,” says orthopedic surgeon Richard Guyer of the Texas Back Institute in Plano.

[via popular science]