Marquette-based Pioneer Surgical Technology Inc. Friday announced the successful human implantation of its next generation cervical total disc replacement, the NuNec Cervical Arthroplasty Device.

The surgeries were performed by Drs. Hansen Yuan, Dewei Zou and Wenwen Wu in Beijing China, on patients with degenerative disc disease otherwise indicated for standard fusion surgery.

Yuan, a designing surgeon team member for NuNec, called it "truly a one-of-a-kind, next generation cervical TDR." He said it features a unique locking mechanism and special coatings on the outer surfaces, both for optimum fixation to surrounding bone. Also, he said , the device is radiolucent, meaning it causes no images in MRI or CT scanning.

Added Zou, an orthopedic surgeon and hospital president in China: "I have used several other cervical TDRs in the past and NuNec is, by far, the easiest to implant. These first patients have expressed immediate pain relief after receiving the NuNec device and I am very pleased with these early results."

Pioneer will showcase NuNec and the rest of its products -- the NuBac Intradiscal Arthroplasty System and BacJac Interspinous Decompression System -- at the Spine Arthroplasty Society meeting in Florida later this month.

Pioneer also announced that its devices were not susceptible to the effects of accelerated aging found in some other poly-ether-ether-ketone surfaces, which bolsters support for the long term durability of the company's designs.

Pioneer now has more than 60 United States and foreign patents, and employs more than 260 people worldwide.

More at www.pioneersurgical.com.