Human bone graft – donated, sterilized, and used to help fuse vertebrae during spine surgery

    by energypizza311

    12 Comments

    1. Huh. I always figured it’d look like some sort of bone screen matrix or something. Not forbidden Parmesan cheese.

    2. energypizza311 on

      These types of bone graft products come from human tissue donors. The bone is cleaned/sterilized and freeze-dried to remove any cells while keeping the natural bone framework that the ‘new’ bone can grow through. In surgery, we pack the material between the vertebrae to help the vertebrae fuse together into one solid bone. Over the next few months. the patient’s own bone cells should grow into it and eventually replace the graft with living bone.

    3. so cool! i remember my prosthodontist telling me my dental implants also involved a bone graft and i always wondered what it looked like. so thankful for donors!

    4. After rechecking the sub (I thought this was r/medizzy ), I think this might actually qualify for r/damnthatsinteresting too!

    5. justlookinatshit on

      Appears to be some type of cortical/ cancellous blend

      Amazing how many lives can be enhanced from a single donation. 100s of these grafts can be made from a single donor.

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