[Osteocartilaginous reconstruction, research and clinical application].

Facing the problem set by losses of osteo-cartilagenous substances around the little bones, the finger- and toe-joints for example, the authors scanned a way different from that of amputation or arthrodesis: the functional rebuilding with the help of substitution grafts. An exploratory research conducted on 21 rabbits in Bordeaux in 1990 allowed to test the coupling of two bio-materials used in surgery here and now, a coupling which has not shown any side-effect and whose benefit is to obtain a non-deformable mass, colonizable by osteoblastic cells. The loss of articular substance suffered by a patient in his fingers in 1992 profited by this bone-rebuilding technique. The use of an external articulated stabilizer was an important provisional support during the colonization of the grafts by the osteoblasts. The difference of time in the osseus rebuilding between the rabbits on the one hand, and the human being on the other, is recorded.