Summary

A bone graft transplants bone tissue. Surgeons use bone grafts to repair and rebuild diseased bones in your hips, knees, spine, and sometimes other bones and joints. Grafts can also repair bone loss caused by some types of fractures (broken bones) or cancers. Once your body accepts the bone graft, it provides a framework for growth of new, living bone.

If the transplanted bone comes from another person, it is called an allograft. Most allograft bone comes from donors who have died. Tissue banks screen these donors and disinfect and test the donated bone to make sure it is safe to use. If the transplanted bone comes from another part of your own body, it is called an autograft. Autograft bone often comes from your ribs, hips or a leg.

Learn More

• Bone Graft Alternatives (North American Spine Society)
• Spinal fusion (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Spinal fusion - series (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Bone Transplantation (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Comparison of survival, function and complication between intercalary frozen autograft versus...
• Article: Double plating and iliac crest bone graft can safely fix femoral...
• Article: Reconstruction of large post-traumatic segmental femoral defects using vascularised bone flaps:...
• Bone Grafts -- see more articles

Patient Handouts

• Bone graft (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish