Nonunion in spinal surgery

Solid spinal fusion is one of the principal conditions of the effective treatment in many of the operative interventions performed in different spinal pathologies, in every segment of the spine. Despite of the implementation of new methods of ostheosynthesis the incidence of postoperative spinal nonunions is 5 to 35%. The purpose of this study was to present diagnostic problems, epidemiology, risk factors and contemporary methods of treatment of bone healing disturbances in different spinal pathologies. Further advances in understanding of biology and biomechanics of the bone tissue healing, implementation of improved biomaterials together with the possibility of influencing the bone healing process at the molecular level will reduce the number of patients requiring spinal reoperation because of the nonunion.