CAN ONE MUSCLE REINNERVATE ANOTHER? A Preliminary Study of Muscular Neurotization in the Rabbit

Abstract

In reconstructive surgery we are accustomed to grafting all sorts of tissues with a reasonable expectation of a favorable outcome. The conspicuous exception has been muscle; many investigators have tried free muscle grafts, yet most have failed. However, because of their potential to provide animation and motion, the uses of free muscle grafts (if they could be successfully performed and would function) would be almost limitless. The obstacles to free muscle grafting seem substantial, when we consider that the loss of any one of the requisites of blood supply, innervation, or tension (even in situ) will cause muscle cells to atrophy. Until recently it was generally accepted 14, 17 that muscle grafts inevitably succumbed to rapid ischemic necrosis and eventual fibrosis.