IMMUNE-RESPONSE TO NONSPECIFIC AND ALTERED TISSUE ANTIGENS IN SOFT-TISSUE ALLOGRAFTS

Soft tissue allografts have many uses in orthopaedic surgery, includin g knee ligament reconstruction, hand tendon surgery, shoulder instabil ity, and rotator cuff reconstruction, The predictable biologic incorpo ration of soft tissue allografts without rejection or fear of disease transmission continues to be a goal of basic science researchers. a re view of the current knowledge of the immune system response to donor s pecific, nonspecific, and altered tissue antigens in soft tissue or te ndon allografts is presented, An in vitro study was done in an attempt to decrease immunogenicity of a frozen bone-ligament graft by adding irrigation with Betadine scrub solution and hydrogen peroxide to the c onventional storage process of freezing, Although the irrigation with cytotoxic agents would undoubtedly further decrease immunogenicity, it also decreased stiffness and maximum load by 15%, Whether this decrea sed strength and stiffness would compromise the incorporation and long term success of soft tissue allografts would need to be studied by in vivo experiments.