Impaction grafting is a technique used in revison surgery that has been devised to deal with loss of bone stock in the femur (thigh bone). The technique relies on first recreating a stable and rigid upper femur in cases with severe bone loss, using wires, wire meshes, donated bone or metal plates. In some cases all of these may be required. Once the outline "scaffold" or containment is created, donated or bank cancellous bone is inserted into the femoral tube. The bone graft is hammered into the tube recreated previously using specially shaped tamps that follow closely, the shape of the femoral component to be implanted. By this means a "new" tube is made from the bone graft material reinforced as neccessary with the metal work mentioned above. It may be difficult to believe that a bony tube made in this manner will be strong enough to take an implant, but the method does work. Once this stage of the operation is over, the surgeon will have made up the bony deficiency in the femur with the graft material and will have a bony tube with a cavity within to take the femoral component. The implant is then cemented into the cavity within the recreated femur
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