[A study of spontaneous regeneration of defected short nerve gaps in rats]

Nerve trunk gaps can be repaired with different anastomosis methods. We investigate if spontaneous regeneration can yield results similar to artificial repair, and have compared the degree of nerve regeneration in nerve defects of extratemporal facial nerve trunk in Wistar rats. The lesions measured 4 millimeters long. Three groups were studied: 0. Normal nerve (control). 1. No treatment (therapeutic abstention). 2. Autografts. The considered parameters were: clinical outcome (degree of postoperative facial function, aspect of the defectuous region, nerve conduction latency, and number of axons that managed to penetrate the defect as well as their morphometric characteristics (nerve area). Our conclusion is that in this model placement of autografts yielded significantly better results in all the parameters studied, in spite of the scant defect length. These results likewise allow us to use this model to compare repair by means of different graft types.