Many people afflicted with spinal deformities have suffered something called spinal-compression fractures, in which the vertebra withstands a crushing impact that breaks the bone. Approximately 700,000 of these fractures occur each year as a result of the bone-thinning condition, osteoporosis. In at least one third of these patients, the pain can be excruciating, causing not only spinal deformity but severe debilitation in which patients can barely walk.

The standard treatment for this condition has been conservative medical management, including over-the-counter pain relievers or the more powerful prescription narcotics. Back braces and support devices have also been used, but in many patients, their pain persists. These patients may now find some relief in a procedure that was developed in France in the 1980s and became available in the United States in the early 1990s. It’s called vertebroplasty, and it’s gaining in popularity as more patients and doctors report less pain.

Vertebroplasty is a relatively simple procedure. The doctor first sees the patient’s fracture on an imaging scan such as an MRI or CT. Next, the patient is brought to an operating room or even just a radiological suite where they receive a local anesthetic to ensure a painless procedure. Doctors then use something called fluoroscopy, a fancy X-ray that allows them to see through the layers of the body and get a direct view of bones, blood vessels and other tissues. Once the patient is sedated and the fracture clearly seen on the monitor, the bone cement is mixed, and then poured into a high-pressure needle. This needle is then placed into the vertebral fracture and, once the X-ray has confirmed placement, the cement is injected.

The procedure typically takes less than an hour and the great majority of patients are on their way home within a couple of hours. The good news is that for most patients, the pain relief is immediate, often within the first 12 to 24 hours. But does it last? According to a study soon to be published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, two years after the procedure, patients still reported a decrease in pain. “We found that 93 percent of patients reported improvement in their back pain and ability to walk,” says Dr. Kevin McGraw, lead author of the study and an interventional radiologist at the Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “As much as 91 percent of patients were able to decrease the amount of oral pain medication that they had been using on a daily basis.”

Doctors, however, caution that vertebroplasty isn’t for everyone. It’s most effective for otherwise healthy people who have recently fractured their vertebra (less than a year), have failed with conservative treatment and whose pain persists for more than a few weeks, causing a moderate to severe degree of debilitation. The procedure has also been shown to be quite safe; it has a complication rate of approximately 1 percent. (Potential problems: Because the cement is inserted under high pressure, there’s a possibility that it might leak outside of the confines of the vertebrae and into other tissues. In rare cases, cement has traveled to the lungs and resulted in respiratory distress and death.)

Years ago, few doctors were performing the procedure, but now it’s done across the country by both interventional radiologists and orthopedic surgeons. According to McGraw, regardless of which specialist performs the procedure, the method is the same and success is widely reported. Some patients have had multiple procedures to repair different fractures, but it’s generally recommended that not more than two or three be fixed at once. Studies show that most patients suffering spinal fractures will get better with medications alone, but for those who don’t, vertebroplasty could literally fix a broken back.