[The bone bank--a standardized procedure? Results of a federal survey of German surgical clinics].

An inquiry at German surgical departments about their bone bank techniques showed that 45% of clinical hospitals use allogeneic bone implants among other implants. In 1989, the year of the official survey, allogeneic bone was transplanted about 6000 times in these clinical hospitals. Despite of this high transplantation frequency important differences turn out regarding selection and testing of recipients, transplantation storage and treatment. A lot of clinical hospitals do not perform important donor examinations inspite of proven transmission risks of bacterial and viral diseases by deep frozen bone. A trend analysis shows that despite of the risk of an HIV-transmission and the resulting difficulties in the logistic of the bone bank, the transplantation frequency allogeneic bone stays constant. The official surveys prove the large range of bone bank techniques and should give rise to make efforts to take note of the recommendations for bone banking techniques.