PROLONGED VITAL CARTILAGE GRAFT PRESERVATION USING TISSUE-CULTURE METHODS

Cartilage grafting is one of the most commonly performed procedures in plastic surgery. Since storage of both autologous and allogenic carti lage is necessary, different preservation methods have been used with varying success. The use of chemical preservation procedures such as f ormaldehyde, Merthiolate or Cialit lead to a loss of viability of the graft. This work presents a study of the cell viability of cartilage g rafts stored in different solutions (saline, RPMI 1640 and DMEM) for 1 00 days. Cartilage immersed in saline solution lost 50% of its viabili ty after a storage period of 6 days, after 30 days no viable cells cou ld be observed. In contrast to this, cartilage immersed in tissue cult ure media retained its viability (> 80%) during the whole storage peri od. No differences were found between either culture medium. The resul ts of these experiments suggest that viable cartilage tissue can be su ccessfully stored over a long period of time using tissue culture proc edures.