The history of bone grafts

Bone autografts, allografts, and even vascularized bone grafts are currently used in nearly every orthopedic center throughout the world. The recent interest in bone graft surgery is because of the increased demand for bone grafts for skeletal reconstruction in limb salvage surgery for bone tumors and for reconstruction of failed arthroplasties. This reconstruction of large skeletal deficiencies presents a challenging problem to orthopedists; treatment of these defects has advanced significantly during the past two decades. Bone transplantation has been the subject of many experimental and clinical studies. This is a review of the history of different types of bone grafts used in the past and currently.