Transplantation of gracilis...how does that work?

General Med Student Discussion
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We are studying the lower limb now and one of the blue boxes in Moore talks about how the gracilis muscle is a weak adductor and thus can be removed without loss of function in the leg. The muscle and its nerve and blood vessels are used to replace damaged muslce in other parts of the body. How does that work? Are the artieries and nerves just grafted into place where the damaged muscle's nerves and arteries were? Can you do that with nerves (sorry to be so clueless…I just can't imagine how this works)? Thanks in advance to anyone shedding light on this for me. It is very interesting.

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QUOTE (jblue @ Oct 4 2003, 10:07 PM)
We are studying the lower limb now and one of the blue boxes in Moore talks about how the gracilis muscle is a weak adductor and thus can be removed without loss of function in the leg. The muscle and its nerve and blood vessels are used to replace damaged muslce in other parts of the body. How does that work? Are the artieries and nerves just grafted into place where the damaged muscle's nerves and arteries were? Can you do that with nerves (sorry to be so clueless..I just can't imagine how this works)? Thanks in advance to anyone shedding light on this for me. It is very interesting.

Hi there,
I am going to refer you to a resource called "Microsurgical Composite Tissue Transplantation, Serafin and Buncke (Eds), Mosby Pub" for the techniques of allografting muscle, nerve and tissue as my colleagues in Plastic Surgery routinely perform these procedures which, are out of my scope of surgical practice. I do know that the donor muscle is transplanted en bloc with its nerves, tendons and blood supply anastomosed to the recipient site. The exact technique of performing the surgery can be found in the above excellent text.
To answer your other questions: Peripheral nerves may be grafted and do heal as long as their neural sheaths are anatomosed properly. The better the anatomosis; the better the regeneration. (Central nerves do not regenerate or heal; once cut; forever damaged at this point in time; area of lively research for spinal injured patients.)
I hope that this helps. rolleyes.gif
Natalie
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Thanks Natalie. That is very cool!
Jessica