Peripheral nerve repair using sural nerve graft

ABSTRACT

surgery of oral and maxillofacial area poses the risk of cranial nerve damage such as trigeminal nerve or facial nerve. Inferior alveolar nerve is prone to damage in the third molar extraction, implant installation, orthognathic surgery, open reduction and rigid fixation, and tumor ablation surgery. On the other hands, facial nerve is likely to be damaged or sacrificed with trauma or parotidectomy. In case of inferior alveolar nerve injury, the incidence is reported to be about 1.3%. The nerve function will almost recover in minimal damage, but it won't recover at last in total damage of a part of nerve unit. In latter cases, nerve regeneration is intended by allograft as nerve substitute or various route of nerve conduit. But the recovery with autograft is believed to be most reliable method in the rapair of long-span(longer than 15mm) nerve defect. We have performed autologous sural nerve graft in the repair of nerve defect, which is caused by resection of benign or malignant tumor. Hereby we report the method of nerve harvesting, recovery of defected peripheral nerve and the complications of doner site with the discussion of sural nerve anatomy.