Nerve vascularity in free vascularized nerve flaps

Vascularized peripheral nerve grafting promotes myelination of regrowing optic nerve.

We investigated whether the use of vascularized peripheral nerve grafts on the optic nerve stump enhances axonal regeneration of retinal ganglion cells compared with isolated nonvascularized grafts. The rat median nerve was microsurgically sutured with its supplying artery and vein to the optic nerve stump. The number of retinal ganglion cells with regenerating axons was evaluated by retrograde...

Tissue engineered prefabricated vascularized flaps.

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND.: Microvascular free tissue transfer has become increasingly popular in the reconstruction of head and neck defects, but it also has its disadvantages. Tissue engineering allows the generation of neo-tissue for implantation, but these tissues are often avascular. We propose to combine tissue-engineering techniques together with flap prefabrication techniques to generate a ...

The tibial second toe vascularized neurocutaneous free flap for major digital nerve defects.

PURPOSE Most digital nerve defects can be reconstructed by means of nonvascularized nerve grafts or artificial tubes, for example. When the bed is poor, the defect is long, or there is a concomitant soft-tissue loss; however, a vascularized nerve graft may be a better option. Our purpose is to introduce a method of 1-stage reconstruction of complex neurocutaneous defects in the fingers and to r...

Vascularized Nerve Flap for Spinal Cord Repair—A Preliminary Study

OBJECT By making the "vascularized nerve flap for complete spinal cord gap" model, we assessed the histological effect of this method. METHOD Eight female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 2 groups: group A and group B. Group A included "nonvascularized nerve flap" models, whereas group B consisted of "vascularized nerve flap" models. In each group, we transferred peripheral nerves to fil...

Endonasal Vascularized Flaps For Cranial Base Reconstruction