You’ve done everything right. You’ve endured the cast, you’ve been patient, but the bone has stubbornly refused to heal. A fracture that fails to unite (a “nonunion”) is one of the most frustrating and challenging problems in hand & wrist surgery, leaving you with persistent pain, instability, and the fear of permanent disability.
You’ve done everything right. You’ve endured the cast, you’ve been patient, but the bone has stubbornly refused to heal. A fracture that fails to unite (a “nonunion”) is one of the most frustrating and challenging problems in hand & wrist surgery, leaving you with persistent pain, instability, and the fear of permanent disability.
When a bone is unable to heal on its own, it needs a careful assessment of “why” it didn’t heal in order to fix it. The type and location of the fracture, micro-motion at the fracture site, and patient factors like smoking can all affect a bone’s ability to heal properly. Along with identifying and correcting ALL of the factors that led to a non-union, these conditions require more than just stability—it needs a biological boost. Bone Grafting is a surgical technique that provides the essential building blocks to kick-start and successfully complete the healing process. As a Harvard-trained specialist in complex hand and wrist reconstruction, Dr. Rod French has the expertise to perform these sophisticated procedures both open and arthroscopically, offering a definitive solution for even the most challenging healing problems.
Think of a non-healing fracture like a garden where the soil is depleted; no matter how much you water it, nothing will grow. A bone graft is like adding fresh, nutrient-rich soil and fertilizer. It is a surgical procedure where bone is transplanted into the nonunion site to stimulate a robust healing response.
The goal of bone grafting is to provide the three key ingredients for bone healing:
This technique is most commonly used to treat a nonunion fracture or as part of a corrective osteotomy to fix a fracture that has healed in the wrong position.
Bone grafting is a powerful reconstructive tool used for complex healing problems. You are likely a candidate if you have:
A nonunion fracture isn’t just a static problem; it’s an unstable area that has failed to heal with ongoing motion where there should be stability. With motion between the two ends of the previous fracture, the abnormal mechanics cause further bone loss, which can lead to a loss of blood supply to some areas of bone, and may accelerate the development of arthritis in neighbouring joints. Every month spent on a public waitlist is a month during which your wrist’s long-term health could be declining.
Choosing private care provides timely access to an expert who can stop this process. It allows you to proceed with a definitive reconstructive procedure without delay, giving you the best possible chance to heal your fracture before the onset of severe arthritis, preserving the health of your joint.
The goal of bone grafting is to stimulate a new healing process, and this takes time.
It’s a surgical procedure where bone is transplanted to the site of a non-healing fracture to provide the biological building blocks (cells, scaffold, and growth factors) needed to stimulate and achieve a solid union.
The process is slow and requires patience. While every case is different, it typically takes a minimum of 8-12 weeks for the graft to incorporate and the bone to show strong signs of healing on an X-ray.
A nonunion is when a broken bone fails to heal on its own. Instead of the two ends uniting, the body forms a type of scar tissue in the gap, leading to persistent pain and instability.
The biggest risk is that the bone may still fail to heal, even with a graft. Other risks are rare but can include infection, pain at the donor site (if an autograft is used), hardware issues, and stiffness.
