Harvesting bone graft from the olecranon: a quantitative and biomechanical comparison of proximal and dorsal cortical...

We conducted a study to compare 2 techniques of harvesting ulna bone graft from the olecranon, one using a proximal cortical window (PCW), the other using a dorsal cortical window (DCW), in terms of cancellous bone graft quantity and ulna fracture strength after graft harvest. Cancellous bone was harvested from 8 pairs of embalmed cadaver proximal ulna. Each side of a matched pair was randomly assigned to graft harvest using either a PCW or a DCW approach. Packed bone volume (PBV) was determined by placing the harvested bone into a 3-mL syringe and compacting it with a quasi-static 25-N load. Biomechanical cantilever bending was performed on each elbow to determine load at failure (LF). Paired Student t tests were used to compare PBV and LF between the experimental and control groups. The graft PBV obtained from the matched-pair specimens was not statistically different between the PCW and DCW approaches. Ulnas subjected to proximal bone harvest exhibited higher LF than ulnas subjected to dorsal bone harvest, though the difference was not statistically significant. Compared with bone graft harvest using the traditional DCW approach, harvest using a PCW approach provides similar cancellous graft amounts and exhibits similar fracture resistance.