An innovative intramedullary bone graft harvesting concept as a fundamental component of scaffold-guided bone regeneration: A preclinical in vivo validation

The deployment of bone grafts (BGs) is critical to the success of scaffold-guided bone regeneration (SGBR) of large bone defects. It is thus critical to provide harvesting devices that maximize osteogenic capacity of the autograft while also minimizing graft damage during collection. As an alternative to the Reamer-Irrigator-Aspirator 2 (RIA 2) system - the gold standard for large-volume graft harvesting used in orthopaedic clinics today - a novel intramedullary BG harvesting concept has been preclinically introduced and referred to as the ARA (aspirator + reaming-aspiration) concept. The ARA concept uses aspiration of the intramedullary content, followed by medullary reaming-aspiration of the endosteal bone. This concept allows greater customization of BG harvesting conditions vis-à-vis the RIA 2 system. Following its successful