Year: 1983
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Lesions of peripheral nerves, especially those serving\nimportant motor effectors and sensitive areas, such as\nthose in the upper extremities, can be extremely crippling.\nNot surprisingly, surgical repair of such lesions has been\nattempted for many decades, but it was not possible to\nclaim consistent succes until many lessons had been\nlearned by trial and error. One of the more important\nfacts emerging was that end-to-end sutures could only be\nexpected to yield functional recovery if the anastomosis\nwas not subjected to axial tension.\nExtreme measures, including extensive nerve mobilisation,\nre-routing, limb flexion, nerve stretching and even bone\nshortening were applied to facilitate nerve suturing.\nUsing these measures, Seddon (1947, 1954) achieved success\nin 71% of his cases and Woodhall and Beebe (1956) in 74.8%\nof their cases drawn from their Second World War Experience,\nalthough the anastomosis was not always free from tension.\nThe cases described included a number in which the posttraumatic\ndefect between the two ends of the nerves\nexceeded 20 centimeters. In such cases, end-to-end\nanastomosis without tension is out of the question and\nrecovery is not always possible. Seddon (1954) pointed\nout, therefore, that the number of cases in which nerve\nsuturing was indicated - not merely technically possible -\nwas appreciably less than 70%.
Author: Ram Singh
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W177670857