A study of the clinical incidence of infection in the use of banked allograft bone.

To determine the incidence of infection in grafting procedures utilizing banked allograft bone, 567 questionnaires were sent to collaborating surgeons who used Navy Tissue Bank freeze-dried allograft bone from October 1973 to October 1976. Three hundred and three questionnaires were sufficiently completed to be included in the study. Twenty-one patients were reported as showing evidence of infection, of which twelve were considered minor and nine were considered major according to the effect on the patient's postoperative course. In eleven of the twenty-one patients there were positive cultures as proof of infection: in the remaining ten there were not. Analysis of the proved infections showed that the allograft was probably not primarily responsible in most of the patients. Based on the data obtained in this study, the incidence of infection with the use of banked allogenous bone appears to compare favorably with infection rates reported for orthopaedic procedures utilizing autogenous bone.