Tiam Mana Saffari

78 CHAPTER 4 Figure 3. Macroscopic images of nerve samples obtained with conventional digital photography. Photography images of same samples visualized in Figure 2. Microvessels could be clearly seen in the control nerve at 12 weeks (A), nerve autograft at 12 weeks (B) and nerve autograft at 16 weeks (C). Sutures that are used to repair the graft are visible in nerve autograft groups (B+C) and depict the border of the analyzed frame. Nerve samples are positioned from proximal to distal (left to right, respectively). Scale bar is set at 1 millimeters (mm). Vascular volume measured with micro CT The vascular volume was successfully measured using the micro CT. At 12 weeks, the control nerve samples measured 4.83% vessel ± 0.45 (mean ± SEM) and this had increased to 6.19% ± 0.29 at 16 weeks. This increase between time points was significant (P=0.045). The nerve autografts showed similar results in vascularity between time points when compared to control nerve samples. The 16 week nerve autograft samples (4.95% ± 0.44) were superior to autografts at 12 weeks (3.53% ± 0.43), P=0.043. These outcomes are depicted in Figure 4.