[Repair of traumatic lesions in peripheral nerves--initial experience with laser anastomosis]

Experience with conventional repair of peripheral nerves clearly indicates that there is still room for improvement, mainly in so far as functional results are concerned. It appears that the present microtechnique has reached its limitation given by physical and technological means, materials and methodology. The use of CO2 laser was tried on rat sciatic nerve. An equal number of nerves were severed surgically and sutured, using microsuture technique in one group and the same number of nerves were repaired using the CO2 laser technique. For the setting of the parameters, optimal for our purpose of reuniting the tissues, we have utilised morphological and electrophysiological qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The results were assessed by comparing both functionally and morphologically, the functional comparison being made electrophysiologically and the morphological comparison microscopically and morphometrically. The comparison shows a larger degree of scarring and constriction of the nerves anastomosed by classical microsuture than that of the laser technique. Action potentials going through the anastomosis have been noticed in both groups without significant difference in quality of CMAP, with the exception the latency.