Long-Term In Vivo Evaluation of Chitosan Nerve Guide Properties with respect to Two Different Sterilization Methods

Table 1

Timeline of motor recovery based on evocable compound muscle action potentials (CMAPs) recorded from the anterior tibial (TA) and plantar muscles (PL) upon transcutaneous stimulation of the reconstructed sciatic nerve. Every 20 weeks beginning at 16 weeks after surgery, group sizes were reduced by six animals for interim histomorphometrical analysis. In the EO group, three other animals died due to age in the course of the study (respective n-counts are displayed in the table). A chi-square test was used for statistical analysis of the results (level of significance: p<0.05).

		16 weeks		36 weeks		56 weeks		76 weeks
		after surgery		after surgery		after surgery		after surgery
TA	EO	9/24	37.5%	11/18	61.1%	9/11	81.8%	3/3	100.0%
	β	12/24	50.0%	12/18	66.7%	11/12	91.7%	6/6	100.0%
PL	EO	10/24	41.7%	10/18	55.6%	7/11	63.6%	3/3	100.0%
	β	12/24	50.0%	11/18	61.1%	10/12	83.3%	6/6	100.0%