PURPOSE: This paper was aimed to study nerve regeneration after allografting using conventional point counting technique. INTRODUCTION:The interest towards nerve allografting has been growing since the recent development of better immunosuppressant drugs. METHODS: Three groups were studied: Group A - Lewis rats receiving nerve grafts from isogenic donors; Group B - Lewis rats receiving nerve grafts from Brown-Norway donor rats and treated with saline solution; Group C - Lewis rats receiving nerve grafts from Brown-Norway donor rats and treated with cyclosporine. Nerve regeneration was evaluated by histological analysis and by histomorphometric studies after 6 and 12 weeks. RESULTS: At 6 weeks, nerve fiber density and the percentage of neural tissue in the immunosupressed allograft group (C) were significantly higher than in group B. Allograft groups (B and C) showed significantly lower nerve fibers density and percentage of neural tissue when compared to the autograft group A at 6 or 12 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the point counting method was simpler to use than the computerized model, and yielded accurate and reproducible results.
Nerve regeneration; Cyclosporine; Microsurgery
