Background: The need for safe bone allografts is increasing and preservation of femoral heads from patients being operated on with hip arthroplasty should be encouraged. However, should we preserve femoral heads from patients operated on for neck fracture as tissue mechanical quality may not be satisfactory?
Material and methods: We compared the evolution of stiffness and compactness of fresh-frozen morselized bone obtained from osteoarthrotic femoral heads and those from neck fractures. Both materials were also compared after freeze-drying and irradiation. We used 6 osteoarthrotic and 6 neck-fracture femoral heads to prepare 4 batches of morselized bone. 18 samples from each batch were impacted in a contained cylinder. Frozen bone grafts were tested after thawing at room temperature for 2 hours and freeze-dried grafts were tested after 30 minutes of rehydration.
Results: The stiffness of fresh-frozen neck fracture bone was lower than that of fresh-frozen osteoarthrotic bone at 150 impactions. The stiffness of freeze-dried irradiated bone was higher than that of the fresh-frozen bone and did not differ between osteoarthrotic and neck-fracture bone.
Interpretation: Solvent-treated freeze-dried bone from femoral heads procured during arthroplasty for sub-capital hip fractures represents a valuable source of material for allografts, addressing concerns regarding serological testing, medical history and bone quality.