ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Interbody fusion is an effective approach in the spinal surgery which is traditionally performed via auto/allogenic bone grafting,and it has a number of shortcomings as well as specific therapeutic effects. In the past few years, polymer interbody fusion cages have been gradually applied in clinical practice, which provides more options for spinal surgeons. OBJECTIVE: To introduce the advantages and disadvantages of degradable/non-degradable polymer materials respectively by analyzing their materialogy characteristics, and to further predict their application prospects. METHODS: PubMed, Ovid and CNKI were searched by computer to retrieve articles concerning the materialogy characteristics and application situation of common biomedical polymer materials in the spinal surgery. The key words were "spinal surgery, fusion cage, engineering plastic, degradable high polymer material" in Chinese and English, respectively. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Up to now, a variety of polymer materials, especially degradable polymer materials, are still at the stage of exploring and primary research, and their in-depth studies, including animal and biomechanics experiments, are still expected to be done gradually. Except for PEEK interbody fusion cages, some polymer materials are still lack of large sample and multi-center clinical trials before further application.