VERIFICATION OF A FREE VASCULARIZED NERVE GRAFT MODEL IN THE RAT WITHAPPLICATION TO THE PERIPHERAL-NERVE ALLOGRAFT

We report a vascularized sciatic nerve graft in the rat, based upon th e femoral popliteal superior muscular artery pedicle. The pedicle may be raised from the common femoral artery via the popliteal artery, wit h accompanying venous drainage to the femoral vein. We have characteri zed two vessels: the middle tibial artery to the posterior tibial nerv e and the arteria comitas nervus peroneus to the peroneal nerve. Plast ic monomer and Evans blue labeled albumin injections established the a natomic model. The graft was reliably perfused at the time of isolatio n and 24 hours post-transplantation. The model was used to evaluate re generation across allogeneic (ACI to Lewis, n = 12) versus syngeneic ( Lewis to Lewis, n = 6) nerve grafts. Electrophysiologic and histomorph ometric assessments demonstrated that the vascularized immunosuppresse d allograft was similar to the vascularized syngeneic graft. Both were superior to the vascularized allograft without immunosuppression.