The impact of a muscle target organ on nerve grafts with different lengths—A histomorphological analysis

✍ Scribed by Matthias Rab; Rupert Koller; Werner Haslik; Christoph Neumayer; Boris P. Todoroff; Manfred Frey; Helmut Gruber

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 650 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-639X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4598(199805)21:5<618::aid-mus8>3.0.co;2-b

✦ Synopsis

The present study was done in order to evaluate the influence of a target muscle on the regenerative processes in long nerve grafts. In 21 rabbits the saphenous nerve was used as a nerve graft and coapted to the cut motor nerve of vastus medialis. The animals were separated into three groups with different graft lengths, namely 3, 5, and 7 cm. In a second stage the distal end of the graft (Graft.dist.) was coapted to the motor branch of rectus femoris. Cross sections of the normal vastus nerve and the Graft.dist. before and 7 months after the connection to rectus femoris were analyzed histomorphometrically. Before coaptation to the target organ mean fiber number in the Graft.dist. of the 3-cm-long grafts was 3380 and decreased to 2413 in the 7-cm-long grafts. Seven months after coaptation the results showed a statistically significant decrease of fibers in the Graft.dist. of group two and three and a distinct decrease of the fibers in group one. Summarizing, in a two-stage nerve grafting procedure the reinnervation of the muscle target organ leads to a down-regulation of fibers in the distal end of short and long nerve grafts.