RESEARCH ARTICLE


Lateral Antebrachial Cutaneous Nerve as a Donor Source for Digital Nerve Grafting: A Concept Revisited



Mehmet Bekir Unal1, Kemal Gokkus2, *, Evrim Sirin3, Eren Cansü4
1 Department of orthopaedic surgery Göztepe Medicalpark Hospital, Merdivenköy, 23 Nisan Sok. No:17, 34732 Kadıköy/Istanbul, Turkey
2 Department of orthopaedic surgery Attending Surgeon Memorial Antalya Hospital, Zafer Mah.Yildirim Beyazit Cad. Number:91 Kepez /Antalya/Turkey
3 Department of orthopaedic surgery Fatih Sultan Mehmet Research and Education Hospital . E5 Karayolu Üzeri İçerenköy, 34752 Ataşehir /Istanbul, Turkey
4 Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, Pendik Research and Education Hospital. Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Fevzi Çakmak Mah., Mimar Sinan Caddesi No:10, 34899 Pendik/İstanbul, Turkey


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Creative Commons License
© 2017 Unal et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of orthopaedic surgery Attending Surgeon Memorial Antalya Hospital, Attending Orthopaedic Surgeon. Zafer Mah.Yildirim Beyazit Cad., Number: 91 Kepez /Antalya, Turkey; Tel: +902423146666(4131); Fax: +90 2423441678; E-mail:kgokkus@yahoo.com


Abstract

Objective:

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the availability of lateral antebrachial cutaneous nerve (LACN) autograft for acute or delayed repair of segmented digital nerve injuries.

Patients and Methods:

13 digital nerve defects of 11 patients; treated with interposition of LACN graft that harvested from ipsilateral extremity were included in the study. Mean follow up period was 35, 7 months. The mean time from injury to grafting is 53, 3 days. The results of the mean 2PDT and SWMT values of injured /uninjured finger at the end of follow up period were evaluated with Paired T test. The correlation between the defect length and the difference of 2PDT, SWMT values between the uninjured and injured finger at the end of follow up period; were evaluated with Pearson - correlation analysis.

Results:

The mean value of our 2PDT and SWMT results are ~5,923, ~3, 52, respectively in which can be interpreted between the normal and diminished light touch. The defect length and difference percentage of SWMT values is positively and significantly correlated statistically. Mean length of interposed nerve grafts was 18.5 mm. The age of the patient and the mean values of 2PDT and SWMT with the difference % of 2PDT and % of SWMT are not statistically correlated.

Conclusion:

Based on results regarding sensory regaining at recipient side and negligible sensory deficit at harvesting side, we suggest that lateral antebrachial cutaneous nerve might be a valuable graft option for digital nerve defects.

Keywords: Digital nerve injury, Nerve grafting, Lateral antebrachial, Cutaneous nerve (LACN), Donor source, Autografting.