ABSTRACT
Extensive bone defects caused by bone tumor resection, osteomyelitis, congenital pseudoarthrosis,
post-traumatic bone loss, or femoral head necrosis, require large bone grafts. Such
large defects usually are not amenable to conventional, nonvascularized cancellous
grafts. By using vascularized bone grafts that do not undergo creeping substitution,
that heal rapidly and are not depending on the surrounding tissue, better, safer,
and faster results can be obtained. To compare recoveries after vascularized grafts
with those after conventional, nonvascularized grafts, experiments were carried out
in a rabbit model. They demonstrated good viability and better and faster healing
of the microvascular grafts, using radiography, scintigraphy, light microscopy of
bone osteocytes and vessels, and tetracycline double-labeling evaluation techniques.
