Sciatic nerve stripping: A rare avulsion injury

Isolated injury to sciatic nerve is not a common entity because of its deeper location and is often associated with musculoskeletal injuries. Though injuries caused by penetratingtrauma,injections and hip surgery are well reported,a self- inflicted complete avulsion of this thickest nerve of the body is unreported. We report a peculiar case of avulsion injury of the sciatic nerve both in terms of its mechanism and the extent of injury. The sciatic nerve along with its branches (tibial and common peroneal nerve) was completely avulsed off its entire anatomical course by a penetrating injury at the buttock. The resulting nerve gaps were reconstructed with sural and superficial peroneal nerve grafts harvested from both lower limbs. Prognostically, proximal nerve injuries in lower extremity fare worse than the upper extremity in terms of recovery after peripheral nerve repair or reconstruction.