Autograft bone is the bone of a patient for use in grafting procedures in their own body. Bone is taken from one part of the body and grafted onto another part of the body to replace damaged tissues.
The advantage of an autograft is a high probability of successful bone fusion. However, complications with using a patient's own bone include infection, bleeding, fractures and tissue damage.
The procedure may also result in additional chronic pain at the site on the body where the bone was harvested. In a spinal fusion, autograft bone is typically harvested form the patient's hip (the iliac crest) and placed in between two vertebrae in the spine to set up the conditions for the vertebrae to fuse together into one long bone.
