Bacterial contamination of femoral head allografts from living donors.

We analyzed the bacterial contamination rate of femoral head allografts from living donors and determined the true bacterial load with cultures from the grafts in their entirety in a specially prepared medium. During 4 years we took swab cultures from 2,679 grafts of which 2,414 (90%) were negative. In a period of 12 months, grafts rejected for reasons other than infectious disease were cultured in their entirety to determine the true bacterial load. Of the 106 grafts included, 15 were contaminated. Microorganisms were isolated from 10 of the 91 initially swab culture-negative grafts (9%) and from only 5 of the 15 swab culture-positive grafts, most of which were normal skin contaminants. Swab culture negative grafts apparently may still be contaminated. It seems wise to subject all femoral head allografts from living donors to antibacterial processing.