Andy never saw it coming. The intersection was clear when he entered it, and the right-of-way was his. The impending accident, like so many others, happened in the blink of an eye. The convertible crashed violently into the right front of Andy’s car, snapping his body sideways while his hips remained secure in the seatbelt.

Andy’s back was sore afterward, but not unbearably so. “It didn’t hurt bad at first,” he recalled. “Then I couldn’t get out of bed. It would take me a good five minutes to get out of bed. It got progressively worse.”

Twelve weeks later, in February 2004,  Andy sought medical help. An MRI indicated that a disc in his lower back had herniated, which meant that the gel inside the disc had ruptured through a weak area in the disc wall. The herniation wasn’t large, but it was enough to impose itself painfully on a spinal nerve. Andy’s doctor, a neurologist, prescribed the first wave of treatments, which were intentionally conservative: physical therapy, three sets of epidural steroid injections in the spine, and traction. When Andy did not improve, the neurologist knew that a more aggressive treatment probably would be necessary. He referred Andy to Dr. Charles Kuntz IV, a neurosurgeon with the Mayfield Clinic and the Director of Spine and Peripheral Nerve Surgery at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Kuntz discovered that Andy’s back pain was the result of more than just a herniated disc. Although Andy was only 33, he suffered from degenerative disc disease, a condition in which age and wear and tear cause intervertebral discs to dry out, shrink, and generally break down. The herniation caused by the automobile accident had aggravated the condition. Andy prepared himself mentally for spinal fusion, the traditional treatment for degenerative disc disease.

The timing of Andy’s treatment, however, coincided with the Mayfield Clinic’s participation in the FlexiCore Intervertebral Disc Clinical Trial. The multi-site trial seeks to determine whether symptom relief provided by the FlexiCore artificial disc is better, worse, or the same as fusion surgery and whether patients receiving the FlexiCore disc still have motion of their vertebrae. Patients who have undergone fusion have little or no motion at the fusion site. Both treatments -- disc replacement and fusion – are expected to relieve pain and the symptoms of nerve irritation, while halting the progression of any present symptoms related to the spine.

As a result of Mayfield’s participation in the study, Dr. Kuntz – one of the study’s principle investigators – gave Andy a special opportunity: Andy could participate in the trial and thereby have a two-in-three chance of being treated with the FlexiCore artificial disc and a one-in-three chance of being treated with fusion.

“When I first came to Dr. Kuntz I figured I was going to have a fusion and be done with it,” Andy said. “I didn’t know there were any other options. When Dr. Kuntz said there’s another option, I thought, ‘Wow, sure, yeah, I’d like to sign up for that.’ I was the first one enrolled in the study.”

Andy was then randomly assigned to receive the FlexiCore disc. He underwent surgery in August 2004, spent four days in the hospital, and was able to walk three miles only three to four weeks later.

“I have a new lease and a chance to have a quality of life,” Andy said. “I want to be able to play golf again. I want my range of motion back. That’s why I was so excited about this new technology. There’s no rigidity there.”

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