Biomechanical Evaluation of Prefabricated Bone Grafts

Four months after bone graft prefabrication, compression tests were performed on six prefabricated bone grafts from the periosteal flap group, six prefabricated bone grafts from the muscular pouch group, eight native cancellous bone samples from the iliac crest, and eight native cortical bone samples from the radius to evaluate the biomechanical properties. These samples were chosen as controls because of their similar cross-sectional area and the fact that both bone qualities (cancellous and cortical bone) were used for bone defect reconstruction. Prior to mechanical testing, the test samples were cut into cylinders with the same diameter as the prefabricated bone grafts (4 mm) and a height of 8 mm. Then, the cross-sectional area and height of the test samples were measured using Image-Pro 5.0 software (Media Cybernetics). The samples were tested under uniaxial compression using a biomechanical analyzer (Instron-8874, Canton, MA) according to a previously described protocol^{39 (link)}.