Significance of nerve growth factor low affinity receptor p75 in the formation of traumatic neuroma / 中华显微外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the expression and distribution the low affinity receptor p75 of nerve growth factor in the traumatic neuroma and investigate its significance and relationship with the growth of peripheral nerve and the formation of the traumatic neuroma.Methods Fifty-one cases of traumatic neuro- ma were collected and were divided into four groups according to its course,i.e,groupⅠ(less than one month),groupⅡ(1～3 months),groupⅢ(3～6 months) and groupⅣ(more than six months).Fifteen cases of normal nerve samples were harvested as the control group(n=15).Immunohistochemical studies were performed to observe the expression of p75.the expression level was detected by the computer graph analysis system.Results There was no significant expression of p75 in the normal nerve while in the four studied groups,significant expression of p75 waspositively observed.The level of p75 was weak in the early time and achieved its peak in three months,but the high level state was maintained even after six months.The one-way ANOVA statistic analysis manifests that there were no significant differences of the expression of p75 among the groupⅡ,ⅢandⅣ(P＞0.05),but the differences among the groupⅠand the latter three groups were signifi- cant (P＜0.05).p75 was mainly distributed in the Schwans cell.Conclusion p75 is expressed in the traumatic neuroma and may play an important role in the modulation progress of the formation of traumatic neu- roma with an unknown mechanism.