The CHARITÉ Artificial Disc is designed to provide a new therapeutic option for treatment of degenerative disc disease as an alternative to spinal fusion to preserve function in the lumbar vertebral region. Each institution participating in the study was to treat the first 5 consecutive study participants with the CHARITE to as it involves a modification to the technique used for anterior fusion. Data will be collected on these "training" cases but will not be included in the comparison with the control (fusion) treatment.