The allogenic nerve graft

A segmental nerve defect is still best be treated by autologous nerve graft. However, besides its donor side morbidity, extensive nerve defects of peripheral nerves or the brachial plexus often cannot be completely treated due to missing quantity of autologous nerve graft material. Thus two solution are possible: first, incomplete reconstruction — the abandoned nerve trunk is used as additional source of autologous graft material (ulnar nerve in complete brachial plexus palsy), or second, the application of new reconstruction techniques, such as nerve distraction [1], tubes [7] or nerve allografts [3, 9, 14]. Nerve distraction is still in the laboratory phase [1, 11]. Nerve tubes should not be chosen in cases of mixed nerve and=or defect larger than 10mm [2]. Thus the nerve allograft still seems to be the best substitute.