Bone Grafting, Its Principle and Application: A Review
Bone grafting is a surgical procedure that uses transplanted bone tissues
and implants to repair and rebuild diseased or damaged bones.
It is a common procedure that have several advantages in veterinary medicine and indicated for the treatment of
various anomalies such as malunions, delayed unions and refractory non-unions, mandibular and calvarial
reconstruction, as well as for aggressive tumor resection.
Moreover, it is also indicated to repair the composite defect, to replace comminuted fragments, to lengthen bones, to help ensure union in the treatment of fresh fractures, to hasten early production of bone and osteomyelitis
Bone is the second most commonly implanted material in the human body,
after blood transfusion, with an estimated 600,000 grafts performed annually.
Healing of contaminated fractured bone is still one of the most challenging features in trauma
surgery in all species especially in larger animals such as horses.
Thus, bone grafts and synthetic bone graft substitutes are used to fill and
support bone healing and formation. These grafts should have no antigen-antibody
reaction and good bioresorbable quality.
Also, bone grafts act as a mineral reservoir which induces new bone formation.
In general, bone graft used is a framework to provide stability, treatment of pseudoarthrosis and to stabilize spinal segments and the addition of bone stock in total joint replacement.
The first recorded attempt to use bone graft was by the Dutch surgeon Job Van Meek’ren in 1668. Church literature mentions the first transplantation of a bone graft in a Russian soldier with a dog’s cranial bone in 1682.
Nowadays, a bone graft is a dynamic tool that supports normal forces and incorporates itself into the bed, revascularize as new bone forms.
Osteol Rheumatol Open J. 2020; 1(1): 43-50. doi: 10.17140/ORHOJ-1-113
