The following is a transcript of a report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks that first aired Aug. 24, 2006, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Some people ages 50 and older suffer debilitating low back pain caused by spinal stenosis.

Neurosurgeons at Allegheny General Hospital are now using a "magic bullet" to relieve that pain without major surgery.

If medications and steroid injections no longer relieve the pain, this is just what the doctor ordered as a viable alternative to major surgery.

Seven weeks ago, Harry Lutes couldn't walk very well or stand for more than a few minutes. He was seriously considering a wheelchair.

Lutes: "It was severe. If you walk or turn or take a step wrong, it would just jab you. And when it did jab you, it hurt."

He tried everything from medications to steroid shots. Nothing helped for long.

The problem: lumbar spinal stenosis. It's the most common cause of disabling back pain and the leading cause of surgery in folks over 50. Basically, it's an arthritic condition.

Dr. Jack Wilberger: "Their joints will enlarge and their knuckles will get big and knobby-looking. The same thing can happen in their lower backs. When those joints enlarge, they can start crowding out the space for the nerves."

That causes severe pain in the lower back and legs.

An MRI didn't show the narrowing in Lutes' spine, but a mylogram did. Fortunately, Wilberger could offer something other than conventional surgery.

Lutes: "Life is good now. Life is good."

What has made life good again for Lutes? It looks like a little titanium bullet with wings. It's called the X-Stop, implanted in a 45-minute minimally invasive procedure through a one-inch incision to reach a ligament that spans the spinal bones

Wilberger: "We basically poke a hole through that ligament and then insert this with some rather simple instruments so that it ends up in exactly this position."

The wings clamp the bones so it can't move.

Lutes: "No pain. None whatsoever."

Lutes went home the day after his surgery and was on the golf course three weeks later.

The X-Stop was approved by the Food and Drug Administration six months ago. It works best in patients who have moderate impairment and who get relief from their pain when they bend forward.

Bending forward opens the spinal canal naturally. That's also what the X-Stop does.