Calcium sulfate bone void filler: A review and a look ahead

Bone grafting to augment skeletal healing has become one of the most common techniques in surgical practice. However, the morbidity and limited availa bility associated with autografts, and the potential for disease transmissi on, immunogenic response, and variable quality associated with allografts, have engendered a plethora of alternative materials. Such alternatives rang e from the simple, such as calcium sulfate and calcium phosphate materials, to the complex that contain allograft extracts, bone morphogenetic protein s, or other agents. Calcium sulfate has the distinction of being the altern ative that is both one of the simplest as well as that which has the longes t clinical history as a synthetic bone graft material-spanning more than 10 0 years. This article reviews the structure and function of calcium sulfate as a synthetic bone void filler and speculates on its future surgical role . It is anticipated that this foundation will also help assist in the under standing of how other bone graft alternatives may operate.