We use cookies to personalise content, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic and improve our site. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners for these purposes. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. To find out more, please see our Privacy Statement.
Accept

understanding the mechanics of nerve repair

There are different ways to repair peripheral nerve gaps, but the size of the bridging material used matters. For example, the sural nerve is a common donor nerve, but it tends to be smaller in diameter with few nerve fibres, often resulting in the need to use multiple strands of the nerve as a graft to match the diameter of the injured nerve.1 Avance Nerve Graft® is available in a range of diameters, so it can be matched to the diameter of the nerve being repaired. Keep reading to learn more.

Nerve auto graft

  • Hours: Auto graft tubes are filled with debris and cells from the harvested site; the graft is revascularised and cells begin to clear out tube debris and prepare the structure as a scaffold for regenerating axons.
  • Days: Tubes clear, Schwann cells line up and regenerating axons seek tubes to grow; axon regeneration is well distributed through the entire cross section of the graft due to tube organisation (scaffolding) in the nerve tissue.
  • Weeks: Regenerating axons have found a tube and are close to bridging the entire length of the nerve gap. Over time, these axons regenerate across the entire length of the graft, then continue on to the target site.
  • Months: Axons continue to mature and remyelinate, resulting in a new nerve segment that, depending on the injury and the nerve being repaired, may restore nerve function.2

Conduit series

  • Hours: Fluid containing inflammatory cells and secreted trophic factors fill the conduit.
  • Days: A fibrin bridge forms inside the tube; regeneration requires formation of the fibrin matrix, which acts as a physical bridge across the nerve gap; the thickness and quality of the cable is inversely related to the length of the conduit and often does not fill the entire volume of the tube, or does not even form if the gap length is too long.
  • Weeks: The fibrin bridge breaks down; SCs infiltrate from both stumps and grow along the fibrin cable; some line up and form aligned tubes, making a structure that can physically guide regenerating axons across the nerve gap; axon regeneration is centralised to where the fibrin cable forms; some SC tubes remain empty, and any regenerating axons that do not locate a SC tube to guide them get pruned back and die.
  • Months: Axons that are able to find and regenerate within an SC tube grow across the entire length of the conduit and continue on to the target site. Depending on the size of the nerve discontinuity and injury, adequate nerve repair can be achieved, but that often results in a thinner nerve segment with variable functionality.3,4

Avance Nerve Graft

  • Hours: Axons may begin sprouting; the decellularised matrix begins to revascularise and repopulate with cells.
  • Days: SCs infiltrate from both stumps, grow into the empty endoneurial tubes and align, forming structures to help guide axon regeneration across the nerve gap.
  • Weeks: Many endoneurial tubes fill with regenerating axons that have remyelinated. Axon regeneration is well distributed throughout the entire cross section of the graft due to the organisation of endoneurial tubes throughout the tissue matrix. Over time these axons regenerate across the entire length of the graft and continue to the target site.
  • Months: Axons continue to mature and remyelinate, resulting in a new nerve segment that, depending on the injury and nerve being repaired, may restore nerve function.3,5-7

references

  1. Meek MF, et al. Clinical use of nerve conduits in peripheral nerve repair: review of the literature. J Reconstruct Microsurg. Feb 2002;18(2):97-109.
  2. Lundborg G. A 25-year perspective of peripheral nerve surgery: evolving neuroscientific concepts and clinical significance. J Hand Surg. 2000;25A:391-414.
  3. Axogen internal report: RD-001.
  4. Dahlin LB, Lundborg G. Use of tubes in peripheral nerve repair. Neurosurg Clin N Amer. Apr 2001;12(2):341-352.
  5. Karabekmez FE, et al. Early clinical outcomes with the use of decellularised nerve allograft for repair of sensory defects within the hand. Hand (NY).2009;4(3):245-249.
  6. Whitlock EL, et al. Processed allografts and type I collagen conduits for repair of peripheral nerve gaps. Muscle Nerve. 2009;39(6):787-799.
  7. Evans PJ, et al. The peripheral nerve allograft: a comprehensive review of regeneration and neuroimmunology. Prog Neurobiol. 1994;43:187-223.

This webpage is intended for healthcare professionals.

Are you a licensed healthcare provider?