Tissue banking in Mexico

Here, we describe our Tissue Banking experiences of 4 years of activity in Mexico.

Data of allografts provided by our Bank and bone retrievals performed by our teams between February of 2001 and August of 2004 were included.

There were 100 bone donors, a total of 1,107 tissues were obtained with an average of 11 tissues by retrieval, samples from all tissues were obtained during retrieval and cultured for bacterial contamination, 250 tissues were positives to bacterial growth with an average of 22.58% of bacterial contamination of tissue by retrieval. A total of 4,493 allografts were provided and were utilized in 3,643 patients. The allografts were used mainly by orthopedic surgeons (62%) and dentists (30%). The most used allografts were morcellized cancellous bone 31%, pulverized 25% and chips of cancellous bone 20%. Among orthopedic patients the most frequent procedures were related with spine degenerative diseases 39.09%, followed by non-pathological fractures and its complications 28.67% and bone tumors and cystic bone lesions 11.59%.

Sustained increase of allograft utilization in Mexico reflects a great necessity for them in our country. The increase in public awareness about tissue donation has allowed an increase in tissue donations and retrievals.