Successful disinfection of femoral head bone graft using high hydrostatic pressure.

The current standard for sterilization of potentially infected bone graft by gamma irradiation and thermal or chemical inactivation potentially deteriorates the biomechanical properties of the graft. We performed an in vitro experiment to evaluate the use of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP); which is widely used as a disinfection process in the food processing industry, to sterilize bone grafts. Four femoral heads were divided into five parts each, of which 16 were contaminated (in duplicate) with 10-10 CFU/ml of Staphylococcus epidermidis, Bacillus cereus, or Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Candida albicans, respectively.