BeST-Graft viewer, a new system to improve the bone allograft-recipient matching process

Abstract

Introduction: Tissue establishments are responsible for processing, testing, preserving, storing, and distributing allografts from donors to be transplanted into recipients. In some situations, a matching process is required to determine the allograft that best fits the recipient. Allograft morphology is a key consideration for the matching process. The manual procedures applied to obtain these parameters make the process error-prone. Material and Methods: A new system to manage bone allograft--recipient matching for tissue establishments is proposed. The system requires bone allografts to be digitalized and the resulting images to be stored in a DICOM file. The system provides functionalities to: (i) manage DICOM files (registered in the PACs) from both allografts and recipients; (ii) reconstruct 3D models from DICOM images; (iii) explore 3D models using 2D, 3D, and multiplanar reconstructions; (iv) take allograft and recipient measurements; and (v) visualize and interact with recipient and allograft data simultaneously. The system has been installed in the Barcelona Tissue Bank (Banc de Sang i Teixits), which has digitalized the bone allografts to test the system. Results: A use case with a femur is presented to test all the viewer functionalities. In addition, the recipient--allograft workflow is evaluated to show the steps of the procedure where the viewer can be used. Conclusions: The bone allograft--recipient matching procedure can be optimized using software tools with functionalities to visualize, interact, and take measurements