Configuration and Management of a Femoral Heads Bone Bank in a Specialised Tertiary Orthopaedic Hospital in Bucharest

Abstract

The purpose of the current paper is to describe the functioning protocol of a femoral heads bone bank in a specialised tertiary orthopaedic hospital in Bucharest and the results of its activity between January 2011 and December 2016. Since the initiation of the femoral head bone bank in 2011, we selected and tested 761 donors of femoral heads. Out of them, we implanted 435 grafts to a total of 242 recipient patients. We performed a thorough donor screening process, which resulted in a significant proportion of femoral head allografts discarded, mainly due to a positive hepatitis B or/and C viruses test or a positive result of the bacterial culture from the bone graft (in 3% of the grafts); the offending micro-organism was a Methicillin-Sensible Staphylococcus spp. Our bone bank may serve as a framework for developing similar structures by other hospitals in our country or elsewhere.