Abstract
Bone allografts are increasingly being used in various orthopaedic surgeries all over the world but were not readily available in Nigeria until year 2020 when the first bone bank facility was established at our hospital. The paper aimed to share our experience and the challenges faced within the first 2 years of operating the first bone bank in Nigeria. We retrospectively reviewed our experience between 1(st) September 2020 and 31(st) August 2022. The donors were selected based on American Association of Tissue Bank (AATB) guidelines and Nigerian National Blood Transfusion policy. Our preference was the use of allograft without late donor testing for HIV seroconversion. However, the allografts were treated, irradiated at 25 kGy, and stored in a freezer at -80°C. A total of 88 bone grafts were retrieved, processed and stored in the bone bank over the 2-year period. All allografts were from living donors. Of these, 55 (62.5%) bones were retrieved from female donors and 33 (37.5%) from males. The mean age of all donors was 55.9±15.34 years (range: 32-90 years). Bone grafts issued out from the bank were 28/88 (31.8%) in all. There was no single case of clinical infection reported. The challenges observed were limited long bone allografts, low patronage among surgeons, lack of institution preparedness to process bones from fresh dead donors and disinterest from some surgeons. Running of the first bone bank facility in Nigeria has been successful thus far. The challenges can be surmounted by creating awareness amongst the populace and surgeons of the availability and safety of bone allografts.