A comparative study of autologous peripheral nerve grafts

Forty-five Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups. The first two groups were subjected to primary epineural anastomoses, with and without tension. In the remaining two groups, sciatic nerve defects were produced and femoral cable grafts were then performed with and without making an epineural sheath defect on the edge of the recipient nerves. Five functional evaluation criteria (sensation, push-off, fanning of claws, cubital ulcer, and leg atrophy) were used along with histological findings. It has been found that the recovery of sensation was the least in the tension group, as was other functional recovery. Animals with epineural and fascicular sutures ranked highest in functional recovery while cable grafts followed at 4th, 10th, and 12th week of observation.