Graft

Any tissue or organ transferred to a patient.

Any tissue or organ from a donor or a second site in the recipient used for implantation or transplantation into the recipient at the required site.

A piece of viable (living) tissue positioned in contact with injured tissues to afford a scaffold for repairing a defect or correcting a deficiency.

To stimulate closure between separate tissues.

Healthy skin, bone, or other tissue taken from one part of the body and used to replace diseased or injured tissue removed from another part of the body.

A small piece of meristematic tissue, e.g., a bud or growing shoot, called the scion, is made to unite with a larger established plant, called the stock.

In medicine, the repair of a tissue defect by placement of a similar tissue from elsewhere in the body.

Tissue or organ that is taken from one site and transplanted to another site on the same person (autograft), as in transplanting thigh skin to the arm to replace badly burned skin, or that is taken torn one person and inserted in another, as in a kidney transplant.

Surgical procedure that uses skin, whole bone, j or bone chips to repair areas of tissue damage.

Any organ, tissue, or object used for transplantation to replace a faulty part of the body. A *skin graft is a piece of skin cut from a healthy part of the body and used to heal a damaged area of skin. A healthy kidney removed from one person and transplanted to another individual is described as a kidney (or renal) graft. Corneal grafts are taken from the eye of a recently dead individual to repair cataracts. Artificial valve grafts are used to replace faulty heart valves.

The term applied to a piece of tissue removed from one person or animal and implanted in another, or the same, individual in order to remedy some defect. Skin grafts are commonly used, and artificial skin for grafting has recently been developed. Bone grafts are also used to replace bone which has been lost by disease: for example, a portion of rib is sometimes removed in order to furnish support for a spine weakened by disease, after removal of the damaged bone. The bone of young animals is used to afford additional growth and strength to a limb-bone which it has been necessary to remove in part on account of disease or injury. Research is also underway on artificial bone. Vein grafts are used to replace stretches of arteries which have become blocked, particularly inthe heart and lower limbs. The veins most commonly used for this purpose are the saphenous veins of the individual in question, provided they are healthy. An alternative is specially treated umbilical vein.

Tissue transplanted or implanted in a part of the body to repair a defect. A homograft (or allograft) is a graft of material from another individual of the same species. A heterograft (or xenograft) is a graft of material from an individual of another species.