Clinical significance of the free vascularized bone grafts in fractures with large bone defects and non-union.

With the rapid progress of microscopic techniques in surgery, the free vascularized bone graft has been widely applied in fractures with large bone defects, non-union, congenital pseudoarthrosis, bone tumors, osteomyelitis, aseptic necrosis of the bone and osteogenesis imperfecta. We obtained excellent results with the free vascularized bone graft in three cases. One was a case of non-union with large bone defects of the right femur that had not improved despite many attempts at treatment over nine years after an open fracture of the right femur. The other two cases were open fractures with massive bone defects of the right legs. These results are reported here with an outline of the free vascularized bone graft.