Factors determining the contamination of bone tissue procured from cadaveric and multiorgan donors

There is an increasing demand for bone allografts that are widely used in orthopedic reconstructive procedures. The bone tissue may be harvested from two sources: cadavers and multiorgan donors. Providing safe and valuable bone allografts is of paramount importance. Contamination of allografts during bone retrieval seems to be one of the most important problems since pathogenic microorganisms might be responsible for postoperative infections and complications in the healing process. The purpose of our study was to identify all factors contributing to bacteriological contamination of harvested bones. Therefore, we have considered factors such as harvesting environment, explantation techniques, storage and preparation of allografts, number of preceding procurements from the same donor, procurement duration, and time interval between death and tissue procurement. The microbiological evaluation of allografts has been performed by taking cultures from all collected bones. Our study revealed significantly greater contamination rates of bone allografts harvested from morgue than from multiorgan donors. According to this observation, we suggest that orthopedic surgeons should pay particular attention to obtain more bones of the highest quality, personally participating in multiorgan procurements.