[Bone banks : The state-of-the-art]

Need, Strategies and Requirements in the Medical System for Bone Banks: A Review Article

An orthopedic bone bank's creation and management is a challenging procedure where medical organization and legal requirements interact. There are no formal regulations for the management and organization of an orthopedic bone bank in the Netherlands or any other nation in Europe. The recently revised "law of security and quality for utilizing human materials in the Netherlands establishes guidelines for the technical and administrative elements of using human tissue and cells. The bone bank's processes involve a rigorous questionnaire for choosing donors, a complete bacteriological, histological, and serological examination, as well as industry-standard, practices for registering, processing, preserving, distributing, and storing bone allografts. This article explains how an approved bone bank is run, and it may be used as a suggestion for formal regulation or as a model for additional orthopedic bone banks in Europe. Osseous graft manufacture, testing, packing, storage, and transportation are all handled by bone banks. Their primary responsibility is to guarantee the transplants' biological characteristics and microbial cleanliness by legal and quality criteria. All orthopedic surgeons face the challenge of reconstructing bone defects; to address this issue, there are several methods, including the use of autografts, allografts, and bone substitutes to enhance and speed bone recovery. Although autografts have superior biological qualities, their volume is constrained and they are linked to donor site morbidity. Allografts are readily accessible, however, there are still worries about the possibility of infections, and they lack osteosarcoma qualities.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BONE TISSUE BANK AT MOSTAR UNIVERSITY CLINICAL HOSPITAL

Bone tissue banks are necessary for collection, production, testing, packaging, storage and delivery of bone transplants. Bone tissue bank is a link between the donor and the recipient by which the donation becomes a medium of health improvement for both the donor and the recipient. At the Department of Orthopedics, Mostar University Clinical Hospital, about 200 total hip replacements are performed per year. Most patients undergoing total hip replacement surgery (90%) have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis, and they are suitable donors, having in mind their age and comorbidities. In the same Department, around 50 procedures that require bone transplants are performed per year. A team of highly competent surgeons are working on an intensive process of adaptation oriented to quality improvement and intensification of the activity, both with the goal of meeting the standards of excellence in orthopedic surgery. The presence of a bone tissue bank has a favorable impact on the quality of health care owing to bone transplant availability, as well as on the scientific role of a highly specialized institution that examines the properties of bone tissue.