Three years' audit of a bone bank.

A three years' practice of a hospital-based non-commercial bone bank is presented. Altogether 121 allografts were collected from primary hip arthroplasties for osteoarthritis. Altogether 41 of the grafts were used in our hospital, 47 grafts were transported to other hospitals at a non-profit basis. The grafts were stored fresh-freezed at -80 degrees C. The allograft recipient patients in our hospital were reviewed. Main indication for the use of allografts was revision arthroplasty of the hip or knee. Other indications included difficult nonunions, arthrodeses of the knee or spine, difficult major primary fractures in osteoporotic bone and a large bone cyst. Of the nonunions, 3/10 failed to unite and of the revision arthroplasties, 1/19 had to be reoperated on. Three infections were recorded, all of which were unrelated to the allograft transplantation. The infections all healed without surgical intervention.