Anastomosis of the cut facial nerve of the dog using venous

Abstract

Background: The most frequent cause of the damage to the facial nerve is trauma of the bone face, which is quite common especially in highly industrialised countries. Reconstruction of these nerves is carried out only in specialist centres and does not give satisfactory results. Therefore, methods enabling better anastomosis are still being sought.
The goal of this research was a morphological analysis of the anastomosed extracranial part of the facial nerve of the dog.
Material and methods: The stem of the nerve was anastomosed using venous "muff" (experimental group) or by traditional method end-to-end suture (control group). Six months after the surgery the place of the adhesions was controlled and macro and microscopic evaluation was made. Histological specimens were taken and estimated under optic microscope.
Results: Anastomosis of the dog facial nerve using venous "muff" gave better morphological results than the traditional way of anastomosis. In the dogs from the experimental group there were no macroscopic differences between the anastomosed and the healthy nerve from the other side of the face. In the dogs of the control group anastomosed ends of the nerve were thickened, irregularly and secondarily adhesioned with the environment. Complete regeneration of the nerve fibres with regular structure of the nerve was histologically confirmed in the experimental group but in the control group the structure of the traumatic neurinoma was dominant.
Conclusions: 1. Anastomosis of the cranial nerve of the dog using venous "muff" gives better results in macro- and microscopic analysis than anastomosis with the traditional method. 2. The technique of anastomosing cranial nerves presented in the paper could be applied in practice in people, however, it needs further experiments and improvement.