Peripheral nerve damage is a common result of traumatic personal injuries and of disease. Crushed or even severed peripheral nerves are generally amenable to regeneration, however at times the loss of tissue is too great for practical end-to-end suturing to rejoin nerve segments. When this is not possible, the two segments can still be regenerated with restoration of function if suitable conduit, or nerve guide, joins the severed ends. Employing small microbeads of polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA), BIOTEK has used a physicochemical method called SNS (solvent-non-solvent) processing to prepare nerve guides which are 10 mm long with an inner diameter of 1.3 mm and a wall thickness of 0.85 mm. these guides, which porous enough to allow water to flow through the walls, ar strong enough to resist a crushing force of 10 kg/mm. It is proposed to study the effect of microbead size, wall thickness, and process parameters on in vitro nerve guide properties, including strength, rates of water flux through the wall, and rate of strength loss in buffer. Three nerve guide types will be evaluated, using both histological examination and return of function criteria, for efficacy in facilitating the regeneration of the transacted rat sciatic nerve.
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