TUBULAR NERVE GUIDE AND EPINEURAL REPAIR - COMPARISON OF TECHNIQUES FOR NEURORRHAPHY

Experiments were conducted on 36 male, Sprague-Dawley rats. In 10 anim als, neurorrhaphy was performed on the peroneal nerve with epineurial repair and, in 11 animals, with a tubular polyethylene nerve guide. Th e authors tested the hypothesis that, following transient denervation of a skeletal muscle by transection of a peroneal nerve, the restorati on of maximum force and of maximum specific force developed after inse rtion of a tubular nerve guide, will not be different from that develo ped after microsurgical epineurial neurorrhaphy The contractile proper ties of the extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscle, innervated by the peroneal nerve, were evaluated after an average of 116 days. The maxim um tetanic force of EDL muscles with epineurial repair and nerve guide were 84 percent and 75 percent, respectively, of the value for contro l EDL muscles. The specific forces of the muscles in both groups were not different from the control values. The conclusion is that, followi ng stabilization after transection and repair, each of the two methods was equally effective in restoring the ability of the muscle to devel op force.