Fibroblasts Growth Factor and Nerve Fragments Effect on Tibial Nerve Regeneration in Rats: a Comparative Study

INTRODUCTION Injuries of hand’s peripheral nerves constitute a major cause of functional disability, for being a frequent injury in economically active individuals. Today, the most used repair technique is the epiperineural suture, using microsurgical techniques. However, in injuries with segment loss or in chronic injuries when stump retraction occurs, the use of a graft is required. The obstacle in these cases is that the removal of a peripheral nerve graft implies on injuring a previously normal area; besides, the end result with the use of a graft is inferior to the direct end terminal suture of the stumps. New alternatives have been studied in order to avoid these complications. Among those studies, we highlight the use of veins(1) and arteries (2,3), which, for being biological and autogenous materials, would cause little reaction and would allow axon growth drive. The difficult part in these cases is that, by interposing large segments, the vein suffers from collabation, making neuronal growth difficult, while the removal of artery segments would cause a reduced irrigation to donator area. In an attempt to avoid these problems, in recent studies, the use of synthetically-based tubes, particularly silicone tubes, have been researched (4,5,6). In parallel, much has been studied about neurotrophic substances, where the presence of substances stimulating and guiding axonal stumps’ growth is observed (7,8,9,10,11,12). The objective of the present study is to compare the action of Fibroblasts Growth Factor and nerve fragments on rats’ tibial nerves regeneration.