[Experimental study of peripheral nerve expansion with a tissue expander].
If a peripheral nerve could be elongated by a tissue expander (TE) without apparent damage, the length gained could be used to overcome a nerve gap without recourse to nerve graft. An experimental study was made to investigate whether this method for repairing a nerve gap is feasible. The tissue expander was designed by the authors and the median nerve of rabbits were stretched with TE at the rate of about 1 mm/day. The results showed that when the elongation rate was 18.4%, the motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV) was 67.8% and the myelinated nerve fibres (MNF) was 82.9% of the control nerves. In a further study nerve grafting and nerve expansion for repairing segmental nerve loss were compared with 10 mm defects. 4 months later the MCV, MNF, isometric contraction force (ICF) and muscle wet weight (MWW) were not significantly different between the 2 techniques. But with the 15 mm defects, elongated nerve were inferior to the nerve grafting method.
Jiang
B G
BG
People's Hospital, Beijing Medical University.
Shibata
M
M
Wang
S H
SH
D000818:Animals; D008475:Median Nerve / Q000601:surgery*; D009431:Neural Conduction; D011817:Rabbits; D015626:Tissue Expansion / Q000379:methods*; D015625:Tissue Expansion Devices