Showing posts with label nerve graft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nerve graft. Show all posts

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Nerve Grafts May Restore Erectile Function After Prostatectomy

Nerve Grafts May Restore Erectile Function After Prostatectomy: "'Although the sural nerve is considered the gold standard for grafting, genitofemoral nerves were also used in our study, based not only on the initial successful work by Quinn et al, but also on the ease of harvest and avoidance of potential complications related to sural nerve harvesting,' the clinicians note.
They found there was no 'statistically significant difference in erectile function recovery or the achievement of clinically meaningful erections using sural nerve grafts compared to genitofemoral nerves, even in the 28 patients with complete neurovascular bundle resection and no salvage radical prostatectomy after radiotherapy.'
Based on their experience, Dr. Secin and colleagues think bilateral cavernous nerve grafts might be beneficial in select patients, although a definitive answer awaits a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial."

I have never used nerve grafts as I was skeptical of them working. It doesn't make sense to me that nerve bundles, which are not discrete nerves, can coalesce and find a grafted nerve.

At least the morbidity of taking genito-femoral nerves is less than that of the sural nerve.