An Audit of the Douglas Hocking Research Institute Bone Bank.

Ten years of non-irradiated bone graft.

David Love, Orthopaedic Registrar, Geelong Hospital, Victoria

An Audit was performed in the use of non-irradiated femoral head bone graft at the Geelong Hopital over a 10 year period. While it is thought the non irradiated bone graft provides a better structural construct there is theoretical increased risk of infection transmission. We found that over the 10 years to 2004 that 812 femoral heads were donated with 558 being used over 360 procedures in 316 patients. We identified a total of 9 deep infection of which 7 were in joint replacements. Overall this was a 2.5% deep infection rate which was lowered to 1.1% if the previously infected joints that were operated on were excluded.