Postoperative adhesion after uterine horn surgery in the rat, with the use of TC7

The influence of TC7 in adhesion prevention was tested on 24, 2.5-month-old Wistar rats. Their right and left uterine horns were homogeneously allotted into four experimental groups, each of 12 horns. The groups were as follows: Group C (n = 12), that underwent cuts along 1 cm in the serosal layer; Group TC (n = 12), where the uterine horn was only surrounded with 3 layers of TC7, 1 x 1 cm in size; Group C+TC (n = 12) in which the serosal cuts were covered with TC7, as in group TC and an untouched control group (n = 12). All uterine horns were kept in uniform contact with the intestinal serosa layer by means of two 8/0 nylon stitches spaced 2 cm apart, so that the adhesion surfaces were the same in all groups. Lengths in mm and severity adhesions (0 = no adhesion to 3 = severe adhesion) were recorded. The injury in group C caused extensive (8.83 +/- 4.77 mm) and dense adhesions (score 2.42 +/- 1.11) in 83.33% of the cases. No significant differences were observed compared with the C+TC group (8.08 +/- 5.45 mm, score 2.25 +/- 1.30; P > 0.05, ANOVA). Significantly, more adhesions were observed on the C and C+TC Groups than in the control (1.00 +/- 2.27 mm, score 0.16 +/- 0.37) and TC (3.08 +/- 3.38 mm, score 1.00 +/- 1.15) groups (P < 0.05, ANOVA). TC7 does not appear to be an effective agent for preventing postoperative adhesions in this animal model.