Novel Nerve Repair Technique 'Nerve Allograft' Offers Better Results

Researchers at the University of Kentucky found a novel nerve repair technique called nerve allograft that offers better results and fewer side effects.

Traumatic nerve injuries are common and when nerves are severed, they do not heal on their own and need to be repaired surgically. Injuries with saw, farm equipment and gunshot wounds - which are not clean cuts - lead to gap in the nerve. 

These gaps are generally filled using two traditional techniques namely nerve autograft and nerve conduits.

Nerve autograph that bridges the gap using patients nerve taken from elsewhere in the body, caused nerve deficit at the donor site. On the other hand, nerve conduit that uses synthetic tubes cause foreign body reactions or infections.

To overcome these challenges, Dr. Brain Ricker developed a novel technique called nerve allograft. In this technique, doctors use the human nerves harvested from cadavers. The nerves are then processed to eliminate all cellular material, preserving their architecture while battling the disease transmission or allergic reactions.

Rinker, a principal investigator of the study, describes it as a game-changer. "Nerve grafting has remained relatively unchanged for nearly 100 years, and both of the existing nerve repair options had serious drawbacks," Rinker said. "Our study showed that the new technique processed nerve allograft ­- provides a better, more predictable and safer nerve gap repair compared to the previous techniques."

In this, the researchers compared nerve conduit to nerve allograft. The patients with nerve injuries were randomly divided into either conduit or allograft repair groups. After the surgeries, independent blind observers performed standardized assessments at set time points in order to determine the degree of sensory or motor recovery.

The results of the study suggested that "nerve allografts had more consistent results and produced better outcomes than nerve conduits, while avoiding the donor site morbidity of a nerve autograft."

The study was funded by Axogen, Inc. Results were presented at the Annual Combined Meeting of the American Association for Hand Surgery, American Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, and the American Society of the Peripheral Nerve.