Repair of Peripheral Nerve Injury with Continuous Epineural Suturing (An Animal Study)

The standard method for repair of an injured peripheal nerve is epineural repair with separate sutures. In this article، we described a method of continuous running epineural suturing in an animal model، and compared it with the standard interrupted technique. In a clinical trial study، the sciatic nerve of 25 dogs was cut by a sharp blade under general anesthesia. The dogs were randomly divided in 3 groups. The 10 dogs received simple interrupted suturing of the cut sciatic nerve (control group)، another 10 had continuous suturing technique، and the remaining 5 were left unrepaired. After 6 weeks the dogs were sacrificed and the nerves were studied by light and electron microscopy. The amount of consumed suture material، time of repair، myelin thickness and axon diameter were examined. Ultrastructural studies were performed to assess the degeneration and regeneration process. The time of suturing and the amount of consumed suture material were significantly lower in the continous group (p<. 001). No difference was found in regards to light microscopic findings. The regeneration was، however، confirmed by electron microscopy، only in the continuous group. The continuous epineural suture technique described in the present study had a result similar to the standard interrupted method and may replace the standard continuous technique in many circumstances.