Role of percutaneous bone marrow grafting in delayed unions, non-unions and poor regenerates

The present study comprises of 72 patients of post traumatic delayed unions, established non-unions, poor regenerate in segmental bone transportation and limb lengthening procedure treated by percutaneous injections of autogenous bone marrow at the site of failed healing. The average follow up was 4 years. Bone union was achieved in 68 patients. Overall, 72.2% of the patients had an excellent result, 11.1% a good result, 11.1% a fair result and 5.5% a poor result or failure. These results with only 4 failures (5.5%) are encouraging and suggest that percutaneous autogenous bone marrow grafting is a simple, safe and useful technique in the treatment of delayed unions and non-unions. We believe that this technique of percutaneous autogenous bone marrow grafting can be a procedure of choice in those patients where Phemister or Forbes methods of bone grafting alone is required, especially in limbs with scarred and poor soft tissue coverage. This procedure can also be useful in iatrogenic delayed or non-unions which is the commonest cause of non-union in present era of enthusiastic fracture fixation.