The history of Prodisc®

The Prodisc concept was developed in the late 1980’s by Dr. Thierry Marnay, a French orthopedic surgeon.  In early 1990, Dr. Marnay and one other surgeon started implanting a series of Prodisc implants in the lumbar spine. A total of 64 patients underwent implantation between 1990 and 1993, and then were followed up to evaluate the performance of Prodisc.

 

Based on the 6 years’ experience with more than 30,000 implantations the Prodisc concept for the treatment of degenerated discs in the lumbar spine has been further developed for the application for symptomatic cervical disc diseases.

 

The first surgery with Prodisc-C was performed in 2002. The first clinical experience showed good to excellent results. An IDE study for FDA approval in the US was conducted in summer 2003. The enrollment is completed.

 

In 2004, a prospective European multicenter study was initiated. One hundred eighty patients were treated with Prodisc-C. The short-term results show excellent improvement of arm and neck pain as well as an improvement of patients’ disability.