“Babysitting” procedures in proximal nerve trunk injuries: two case reports and a review

Proximal nerve injuries are well‐known to produce atrophy of the distal effectors. This is evident in injuries of major nerve trunks in the upper limb. The ulnar nerve has shown to have the lowest regenerative rate.[1,2] Distal neurotization through end‐to‐side coaptation has been employed[3] to bring new axons into distal effectors in case of proximal nerve trunk injury to avoid distal effector degeneration. End‐to‐side nerve repair is a microsurgical technique in which nerve fibers are transferred from an intact donor nerve to a denervated recipient nerve directly or through a bridge graft.[4‐7] Although the value of end‐to‐side coaptation is debated in the literature, good functional results can be achieved when this technique is applied with special care to the donor nerve.[6]