Osteoarticular Allograft of the Glenoid

For severe cases of shoulder instability in which the socket and/or the ball exhibit severe loss of bone, a transplant is performed to reconstruct that portion of the joint.  This is also a procedure we consider for patients who have been sent to us for a failed Latarjet procedure.  The distal tibia (ankle bone) has been found to have a contour identical to the shoulder socket.   A fresh matched donor tibia is transplanted into the corresponding deficiency of our patient’s glenoid.  

These procedures need to be scheduled within a short window as they require a size-matched donor to be available and these donor grafts have a narrow window in which they may be transplanted.  As such, we take a team approach in which one of our surgeons prepares the graft tissue and uses precision machine cuts to form it perfectly to the patient’s anatomy while Dr. Bak prepares the patient’s shoulder for implantation. 

Dr. Bak has performed multiple glenoid allografts with his modification using solid-core screws to enhance stability and healing. He is one of the few surgeons in the Midwest to have successfully applied this also for the less common posterior shoulder instability.