Evaluation of the effects of fat graft wrapping on early nerve regeneration: An experimental study

Abstract

Objective: It is not easy to establish ideal neural regeneration after peripheral nerve repair. Various types of microsurgical techniques, tools, pharmacological and chemical agents were used to increase the quality of the neural regeneration process. However, we are still far from the perfect neural repair. In this study; it was aimed to investigate the effect of fat graft, wrapped around sciatic nerve repair coaptation zone, in neural regeneration. Material and Methods: Twenty four Sprague-Dawley rats were chosen and separated into two groups equally. In the first twelve rats, skin incision was made in the right gluteal area, after blunt muscle dissection sciatic nerve was exposed. Full thickness nerve cut was performed and primary nerve repair was also performed in the same session. The first group was addressed as normal neural regeneration model. In the other twelve rats, same processes were performed in order to expose sciatic nerve. After nerve repair, fat graft harvested from the right posterior popliteal area was wrapped around the nerve coaptation zone. All the rats were sacrificed 3 weeks post-operatively, nerve segments were removed and sent for histopathological evaluation. Results: Our study demonstrated that macrophage migration and lymphocyte infiltration rates were significantly higher in experimental group. Conclusion: It was observed that wrapping fat graft around the nerve coaptation zone had a positive effect on neural regeneration by increasing macrophage and lymphocyte infiltration to the repair zone.