Functional and Histological Study of Alpha-Tocopherol Using Allografts in the Nerve Repair Model

Peripheral nerve injuries are among the serious health problems of today's societies. These injuries cause long-term disabilities that last until the end of life. This study aimed to histologically and functionally determine the effect of alpha-tocopherol using allografts in a rat sciatic nerve repair model.

In this experimental study, 45 male rats were divided into three groups (n=15 each). Group 1 was designated as the healthy group without nerve manipulation. In group 2, as the positive control group, the rats received 10 μl of sterile normal saline buffer solution intraperitoneally for one week. In the third group, designated as the treatment group (allografts, alpha-tocopherol), alpha-tocopherol was intraperitoneally injected with the same volume at a dose of 300 mg/kg/day for one week. Subsequently, the rats underwent histological evaluation postoperatively at the 4th, 8th, and 12th weeks following the operation. The collected data were entered into SPSS version 17 software. After evaluating the normality of the data by the Shapiro-Wilks test, the results were reported as mean ± standard deviation, and were analised by One Way ANOVA tests and Tukey,s post HOC test under significance level of 0.05.

The results showed that the morphometric and functional indices of the sciatic nerve in the third group were significantly different from the second group (P<0.05). These indicators were improved in the third group.

Treatment with alpha-tocopherol and allografts resulted in significant differences with the control and allografts groups in terms of axon diameter, the number of nerves, and the thickness of the myelin sheath. These differences imply the beneficial effect of this drug on inflammatory cells in the spinal cord and brain.