Transfusion medicine handbook

9. Other Services Provided by NZBS

9.4 Tissue Bank

The NZBS Tissue Banks provide:

• Deceased donor split skin, sourced locally and from international tissue banks, used as a physiological dressing to treat victims of burns.
• Donated or autologous bone, mostly femoral heads, used in reconstructive orthopaedic surgery.
• Autologous cranial bone flaps held for neurosurgical patients until reimplantation weeks to months later.
• Heart valves utilised by both the Paediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiac Services for life enhancing surgery.

NZBS Tissue Banks are located in the NZBS centres in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Deceased donor skin is only available from the Auckland and Christchurch centres. Donated bone is held at the NZBS sites as well as a number of Te Whatu Ora-managed blood banks.

All donations are voluntary. Written consent is required from the donor or, in the case of skin and heart valves, from next of kin. All donations are tested for infectious diseases and bacterial contamination. Tissue is generally stored frozen or cryopreserved and is held for up to five years.

All tissue is issued frozen to a named patient and is only for that patient. An information sheet is available from Tissue Bank for consenting patients. Unused frozen tissue should be returned to the Tissue Bank. Unused thawed tissue must be discarded.