RIA: one community's experience.

The Reamer Irrigator Aspirator (RIA) has three main indications in our community trauma practice. The most common indication for RIA is harvesting of autololgous bone graft from the femur for nonstructural bone graft. The second most common indication is for irrigation and debridement of intramedullary osteomyelitis. The final indication for RIA is for acute nailing of femoral shaft fractures in patients with multiple long bone fractures with or without pulmonary injury. If one pays careful attention to the details of the technique, RIA is a safe and effective method of harvesting autologous bone graft with minimal morbidity. Autologous bone graft harvested with RIA is our graft of choice for nearly all of our bone grafting cases.