Trials of spinal surgery option Infuse were too little, too late

Three years after back surgery, Grace Nestler-Bramm learned that a drug designed to repair her spine was causing new bone to wrap around it and compress nerves.

In March, the Cedar Grove resident became one of nearly 1,000 people who are suing Medtronic, the company that markets Infuse — a number certain to grow.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today analysis of U.S. Food and Drug Administration data found that more than 6,500 reports of Infuse-related problems have been registered with the agency's medical device reporting system since 2002, the year Infuse was approved. Roughly half of those — some 3,300 — were filed last year alone.

Read the full story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel here.