I went with my father to see the surgeon about his ongoing back pain. The doctor suggested putting cement in the spine to glue together a fracture in his low back area. The doctor said the glue could leak. Is that a bad problem?

Injecting cement into a fractured vertebra is called vertebroplasty. When conservative care for chronic back pain fails to bring pain relief, vertebroplasty is considered. Nonoperative care with medications, bracing, and exercise are usually tried first before discussing vertebroplasty.

Cement leakage is the most common complication of this procedure. The cement can move in any direction and can ooze out through the fracture or into the network of tiny veins in the bone.

The most serious problem occurs if the cement leaks into the space around the spinal cord called the epidural space. Pressure from the cement can cause painful neurologic symptoms. Immediate surgery may be needed in such cases.

Alternately, the cement may leak into the disc space. A recent study showed this might be more common than previously thought. They found this type of leakage occurred in 41 percent of their patients. Fortunately, the patients didn’t seem affected by disc space leakage. The vertebroplasty was still a success.