Efficiency of a novel vertebral body augmentation system (Tektona™) in non-osteoporotic spinal fractures

The restauration of the local kyphosis is crucial to thoracolumbar fractures outcomes. Recently, the Tektona™ (Spine Art) system, constituted by a flexible lamella for corporeal reduction has emerged as a promising solution for osteoporotic fractures. However, no study has yet focused on its results on traumatic fractures.

A retrospective longitudinal study on prospectively collected data was conducted on 53 patients that had a kyphoplasty by Tektona™, associated or not to percutaneous fixation. The data collected were clinical, surgical and scannographic (measurement of AVH, MVH and PVH (anterior/medium/posterior vertebral height), and RTA (regional traumatic angle) in°), preoperatively, post-operatively and at last follow-up.

Fractures were mainly located at the upper lumbar spine and were AOSpine A3 type for 74%. The mean RTA was 12° in pre-operative, 4° in post-operative (p = 2e^- 9), and 8° at the last follow-up (p = 0,01). The mean correction of RTA for the fixation group was - 10 ± 6° versus - 7 ± 4° for the kyphobroplasty alone group (p = 0,006). The mean correction for fractures located at T10-T12 was - 9 ± 3°, - 9 ± 5° for L1, - 8 ± 3° for L2 and - 5 ± 3° for L3-L5 (p = 0,045).

The Tektona® system appears to be efficient for acute thoraco-lumbar fractures, comparable to other available systems, allowing a real intracorporeal reduction work. Its relevance, especially in the long term needs further investigation. The association of a percutaneous fixation allow to obtain a better correction of the RTA but did not seem to prevent the loss of correction at follow-up.