Objective To study the effect of vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF) on repair of bone defect with cortical bone allograft. Methods Forty five New Zealand white rabbits, weighted 2.5-3.0 kg, were made bone defect model of 1.5 cm in length in the bilateral radii and then were randomly divided into 3groups. The defect was repaired with only cortical bone allograft in the control group, with the cortical bone allograft and local injection of human recombinantVEGF in the experimental group, and with the cortical bone allograft and abdominal injection of VEGF PAb3 in the antagonist group. Roentgenography, immunohistochemical staining and tetracycline labelling were carried out to evaluate the reparative results 1, 3, 5, 8 and 16 weeks after operation. Results Immunohistochemical staining results showed that a great deal of blood vessels formed in the experimental group, and the number of blood vessels increased gradually with the time and reached the highest value at the 8th week. Tetracyclinelabelling showed the same result.The best results in callus formation, ossification rate and count of microvascular density were shown in the experimental group, while those in the control group were significantly better than those in the antagonist group (Plt;0.05),but there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group at the 8th week and the 16th week (Pgt;0.05). Conclusion VEGF can accelerates the bone formation and angiogenesis in the bone allografts, thus it can promote the repair of bone defects.