Choosing an Allograft from MTF

An allograft is bone or soft tissue that is transplanted from one person to another. Transplanted bone, tendons, cartilage and skin are used extensively in orthopaedics, neurosurgery, as well as plastic, general and dental surgeries. In this country, an estimated 900,000 allografts are transplanted each year.

• Athletes who need reconstructions of their knees usually choose allografts.
• Individuals suffering from back pain often choose allografts for long-term relief.
• Cancer patients receive allografts to fill bone voids following tumor surgery.
• Burn victims requiring skin grafting

These are just some of the ways allografts are used every day to dramatically improve people's quality of life.

Who is MTF?

The Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation is the largest provider of bone and soft tissue grafts in the United States. Founded by surgeons and medical teaching institutions, MTF is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to meeting the needs of surgeons and patients for allografts that meet the highest standards of quality and safety.

As a non-profit, we are proud to be affiliated with many hospitals across the country as well as a network of non-profit agencies that support organ and tissue donation, recovery and distribution. In every case involving tissue donation, informed consent is required prior to any donation. Consent is obtained by highly trained medical professionals.

Where Do MTF Allografts Come From?

Donors are people who have died in accidents or from sudden illnesses such as heart attack or stroke. Often the gift of bone and soft tissues from a single donor can help multiple recipients.

Every donor is screened extensively before donation. All donated tissue is rigorously tested using the most technologically advanced methods to ensure safety and sterility before release for distribution. All tissues that do not pass these rigorous tests are rejected.

Potential donors with histories of any condition that can affect the quality
and long-term performance of the bone and/or tissue are also excluded, and all donations must be approved by one of MTF’s Medical Directors.

How is the Bone Recovered?

All MTF-supplied bone and soft tissue are recovered from donors in sterile environments like operating room settings by specially trained technicians. MTF employs state-of-the-art recovery and processing techniques to maintain the aseptic condition (without contamination) of every tissue.

Donors are treated with dignity throughout the recovery process and remains are returned to families for final funeral arrangements.

What Happens After the Recovery?

After recovery, every tissue is placed in quarantine and subjected to a battery of tests before it can be released to surgeons. MTF follows a strict quality assurance program to check and re-check every tissue for quality and safety.

Processing is performed in tightly controlled, aseptic environments (to prevent contamination) called Clean Rooms. A comprehensive series of processing, safety, and quality controls are required for every tissue prior to its release for transplantation.

The Safety of MTF Allografts

The Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation is a national consortium of medical schools, academic institutions and recovery organizations involved in the recovery, processing and distribution of bone and related soft tissue for use in transplant surgery.

MTF is the largest provider of allografts in the United States. Since our inception in 1987, with over 3 million grafts distributed, MTF maintains an unrivaled safety record.

Our quality and safety standards have been developed by leading physicians, transplant surgeons and specialists in fields including infectious disease.

MTF's quality and safety standards consistently meet or exceed the requirements of the American Association of Tissue Banks and the current regulations published by the Federal Food and Drug Administration.

Ethics & Guidelines

• No Tissue Bank Has a Better Safety Record.
  From the procurement of tissue to processing and storage, to a surgeon's use of an allograft in a recipient's surgery, the highest safety standards are observed at all times.
• MTF is guided in all aspects of our business by surgeons on our Board of Directors and Medical Board of Trustees, never by shareholders.
• MTF does not work with any for-profit tissue recovery agencies. We believe that non-profit control of recovery and distribution are at the heart of ensuring ethical stewardship of the donated gift.
• MTF employs an Audit Team whose sole purpose is to audit our recovery partners on a regular basis and ensure compliance.
• MTF rejects more donors every year than any other tissue bank because these donors do not meet our strict acceptance criteria.
• MTF only uses nurses to perform all of our social and medical history screening.
• MTF employs the latest technologies in donor testing such as serological and Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) to screen out HIV, and Hepatitis C.
• MTF donors are only released to processing after all charts and records are carefully reviewed by one of our Medical Directors who are all physicians with infectious disease or pathology backgrounds.
• MTF employs the use of antibiotic soaks, surfactant treatments, and ethanol soaks in processing tissue. All processing steps are validated and performed in Class 10 Clean Rooms to ensure sterility.
• MTF performs final sterility tests on all tissue before it is released to physicians for use.
• MTF employs the TissueTrace® system to ensure traceability of all tissue to the hospital and patient.