Should Implant Breakage Be Always Considered as Implant “Failure” in Spine Surgery: Analysis of Two Cases and Literature Review

The advancement in the material of spinal implant and technique of spinal instrumentation has led to an increase in spine surgeries. The final desired outcome of spine surgery involving instrumentation is fusion. There is a race among implants to fail and bone to fuse. If there is a formation of pseudoarthrosis or failure to fuse then implants are bound to fail. The most common presentation of pseudoarthrosis is implant breakage. Hence, should we label every implant that has presented with breakage as a "failure"? In this article, we have discussed our experience of two cases presented to us with implant breakage but which were managed successfully with conservative methods. Both of our cases did well without any surgical intervention. We have follow-ups of seven years in one case and five years in the other. Every patient with pseudoarthrosis does not require surgical management and hence, every implant breakage should not be labeled as implant "failure".