Altus Spine receives patent allowance of Pars Repair Device to treat symptomatic adolescent spondylolysis

Altus Spine has received Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office on its Pars Repair Device—a new device which the company says is designed to provide a more elegant solution for treating symptomatic adolescent spondylolysis that is resistant to conservative care.

The Pars Repair Device is the result of over five years of continuous development, and the current effort extends and broadens the work of four prior patents developed by Carl Giordano (Atlantic Spine Specialists, Morristown, USA) and Jeffrey Spivak (The Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York, USA).

“After many modifications and new innovations to this Pars Repair Device, I, along with the entire Altus Spine team, am thrilled to have received patent clearance on this life changing device,” said Michael Fitzgerald, Altus Spine president and CEO, “This collaboration with Carl Giordano and Jeffrey Spivak has been an honour, and the resulting device is truly remarkable.”

By treating the adolescent condition, the device intends to reduce the probability of adult isthmic spondylolisthesis. The current invention is designed to fill a clinical care void that exists in the treatment of these conditions.

Composed of a spinous process plate, a laminar plate, a sub-laminar hook, and a rod, the device has first and second fixation elements are configured to pass through the spinous process plate and the laminar plate, respectively. The rod anchored at the distal end to the third fixation element extends substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the rod, providing multi-planar fixation components.

“Although many techniques exist to repair a spondylolysis, none of the presently available techniques provide the segmental rigid multi-planar fixation that we are used to with other fracture fixation surgery,” said Giordano.

“I personally have performed thousands of these fusion operations over the years for adult isthmic spondylolisthesis and I believe as this new Pars Repair Device enters into the field it could drastically change the paradigm for treating spondylolysis. I believe that this technique will become the standard of care for treatment of spondylolysis in both adolescents and adults,” he added.