Comparison of blood flow in free vascularized versus nonvascularized nerve grafts

The present study was undertaken to compare blood flow between conventional nerve grafts and surgically revascularized grafts. Paired comparisons of blood flow data between a 10 cm segment of vascularized nerve graft and a 10 cm segment of conventional nerve graft in a canine model established that blood flow in the nonvascularized grafts was significantly greater (p less than 0.001) than that in the paired vascularized grafts. The rationale for difficult and time-consuming vascularized nerve grafting procedures may therefore not be warranted.