Bone graft technology principles and implementation

In recent years, a better understanding of bone biology, gene therapy, and tissue engineering has allowed the combination of osteoconduction. The two fundamental criteria for successful bone grafting produce synthetic alternatives to autologous bone grafts. Further developments are expected to yield more effective collagen bone graft substitutes that have a strong osteoconductive base and bioactive cells with bone formation potential.

Here is the content:

l Technical Principle

l Specific Embodiments

Technical Principle

Fusion is facilitated by maintaining adjacent bone structures in a predetermined spacing relationship while allowing bone to grow between them with grafts used to fuse adjacent bone structures. In some instances, these bone grafts are formed from body tissue. In the process of forming the grafts from body tissue, the tissue source, such as bone, is made to form a block that meets the required shape and strength requirements for the specific graft. For bone, the requirements are often specifically described as minimum wall thickness, minimum load-bearing capacity, and/or geometric size and shape. Parts of the source tissue, including those removed in the formation of the bone graft, will not meet the requirements for forming a complete graft.

Therefore, it is often difficult to obtain high yields from specific sources. To this end, we provide collagen bone graft substitute block for fusing adjacent bone structures, and graft for fusing adjacent bone structures. They comprise a plurality of bone blocks and a flexible device comprising one or more flexible, elongated, biocompatible connectors that interconnect the plurality of bone blocks. The graft further comprises a matrix and the connected bone blocks form a string of interconnected bone blocks that are bonded to the matrix to form the graft.

Specific Embodiments

Embodiments of bone grafts include a plurality of bone blocks interconnected by a flexible device to form a load-bearing graft for fusing adjacent bone structures. The adjacent bone structures may include vertebrae, long bones, and skulls, among others. The bone for grafting may be from any suitable bone source. It can include a graft recipient as an autograft, another source of the same bone block as a homograft, or a different bone block source as an allograft.

The bone mass may be granular, randomly blocked, fibrous, striped, stick-shaped, right-angled prismatic, cuboid-shaped, spherical, cylindrical, or any other suitable shape. Each bone block may comprise a cortical bone layer. Combining multiple bone blocks into a graft allows the donor bone to be smaller than the predetermined minimum bearing strength or geometry used to form the bearing graft. The bone blocks may have any suitable longitudinal length, any suitable width, and any suitable height. In addition, the plurality of bone blocks may each also contain a cancellous bone layer adjacent to the cortical bone layer.

Bone grafting is widely used in acute trauma surgery and the treatment of bone discontinuities. Autografts can be obtained from the autologous body and are the best form of graft currently available. In addition, frozen or lyophilized allogeneic bone grafts or structural bone graft substitutes will be osteoconductive and can be used alone or in combination with each other. The addition of BMP, bone marrow, or DBM will provide osteoinduction. In cases of uncontrolled infection, none of the forms are suitable for use.