BONE ALLOGRAFT BANKING IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

The South Australian Bone Bank has expanded to meet an increased deman d for allograft bone. During a 5 year period from 1988 to 1992, 2361 a llografts were harvested from 2146 living donors and 30 cadaveric dono rs. The allografts were screened by contemporary banking techniques wh ich include a social history, donor serum tests for HIV-1, HIV-2, hepa titis B and C, syphilis serology, graft microbiology and histology. Gr afts were irradiated with 25 kGy. The majority of grafts were used for arthroplasty or spinal surgery and 99 were used for tumour reconstruc tion. Of the donated grafts 336 were rejected by the bank. One donor w as HIV-positive and two had false positive screens. There were seven d onors with positive serology for hepatitis B, eight for hepatitis C an d nine for syphilis. Twenty-seven grafts had positive cultures. Bone t ransplantation is the most frequent non-haematogenous allograft in Sou th Australia and probably nationally. The low incidence of infectious viral disease in the donor population combined with an aggressive disc ard policy has ensured relative safety of the grafts. The frequency of graft rejection was similar to other bone banks but the incidence of HIV was lower.