AUTOLOGOUS PLASMA CLOT SUTURE OF NERVES

The conventional method of repairing severed nerves is by the use of silk sutures, which are introduced ideally through the connective tissue sheath of the nerve. Actually it is very difficult to avoid the inclusion of some nerve fibers in each suture, and these fibers may be strangulated when the threads are tied. This is especially true of small nerves with delicate connective tissue sheaths. A further objection to silk suture of nerves is that, when the threads are tied, there tends to occur some knuckling of fibers with disturbance of the longitudinal organization of nerve fiber pattern at the suture site. The knuckling of nerve fibers is very striking when pronounced retraction of the nerve sheaths has occurred, so that when the sutures are passed through the sheaths (which often do not come back over the bundles) and then tied, the stumps become pressed against one another and a