Background. Peripheral nerve injury (PNI) is a common medicalcondition. The defected nerve, if not repaired as early aspossible, can cause long-term denervation and neurotrophyfailure for the target organ. This leads to a series ofdenervation manifestations, such as muscle atrophy, lossof sensory function, etc. and ultimately, these manifestationsseriously affect the patient’s sensorimotor function (Sondellet al., 1998; Chen & Zhu, 1990). Amniotic membranes have been widely used in ophthalmology and skin injury repair because of their anti-inflammatory properties. In this study, we measured therapeutic efficacy and determined if amniotic membranes could be used for sciatic nerve repair.
Material and methods. A post test only control group design has been done in10 healthy Sprague Dawley rats. In all rats, a unilateral right side sciatic nerve transection was performed and reanastomosed by different methods: Group I (control group): included 5 rats, the anastomosis was done by epineural microsutures using 8/0 nylon. Group II: included 5 rats, the anastomosis was done by epineural microsutures using 8/0 nylon and then wraped by freeze dried human amniotic membrane. Functional evaluation of nerve recovery was done over 3weeks postoperatively using walking tract analysis and calculate using Sciatic Functional Index.
Result. Mean of SFI in control group at day-1 was -88.906 ± 0.011 and experimental group was -88.916 ± 0.011. This value remain until day-21 in both groups. Independent T-Test shows no significant difference between this two groups.
Conclusion. We can conclude that freeze dried human amniotic membrane did not effect the sciatic nerve function post anastomosis in Sprague dawley rat.
Keywords: sciatic nerve injury, freeze dried human amniotic membrane, walking track analysis, sciatic functional index.