Regenerative Effect of Microsuture Nerve Repair and Fibrin Glue after Rat Sciatic Nerve Section

ABSTRACT

To compare the regenerative effect of direct end-to-end suture, nerve graft and sutureless fibrin glue repair in the rat sciatic model, forty rats were divided into 4 groups normal control group(NC-G, n=6), direct end-to-end suture group(DS-G, n=12), nerve graft group(NG-G, n=10) and sutureless fibrin glue group(FG-G, n=12). One half of each group except NC-G was sacrificed 4 weeks later and the other half was sacrificed 14 weeks later. The repair site was assessed by nerve conduction studies and quantitative morphometry. Regeneration index (RI) was defined as a total number of remyelinated axons in one quarter of 3X5 inch sized microphotograph. The comparison among groups was analyzed statistically by Kruskal-Wallis 1-way ANOVA and Mann-Whitney test. Nerve conduction study done 14 weeks later revealed that latency was 1.7ms+/-0.18(DS-G), 2.4ms+/-0.35(NG-G), 2.4ms+/-0.17(FG-G) and amplitude was 20.1mV+/-2.89(DS-G), 12.0mV+/-2.47(NG-G), 13.7mV+/-2.95(FG-G). RI was 281+/-37.5(DS-G), 227+/-14.4(NG-G) and 217+/-22.2(FG-G). There was a statistical difference in the latency, amplitude and RI between three groups(p0.05). Regenerative effect of fibrin glue is not different from that of nerve graft, therefore fibrin glue repair can facilitate inaccessible nerve repairs in skull base or spinal surgery.