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Abstract
Histological changes induced by the slow stretch of peripheral nerves using a tissue expander were studied using a rat sciatic model. Tissue expanders were adapted to elongate the sciatic nervein vivo. Nerves elongated over an eight week period using this method achieved an average increase in length of 88%.
Light microscopic examination revealed that individual axons were separated but each axon and the myelin sheaths were stained well. Electron microscopic examination showed that the convoluted contour of the axons appeared and some loss of myelin was also observed, but the intraneural cytoskeleton elements were kept intact.
Reference
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 12,
1993
Received:
February 12,
1993
Footnotes
This work was made possible by grants from the Project Council of Tsukuba University.
Identification
Copyright
© 1993 The British Association of Plastic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc.
