Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Tendon injury is common seen in sports exercise, and tendon adhesion often occurs during the repair of tendon injury. Tendon adhesion can damage tendon function. At present, chitosan is a hotspot for prevention of tendon adhesion.
OBJECTIVE: To review the effect of chitosan on post-sports tendon adhesion.
METHODS: A computer-based search of CNKI and PubMed from January 1990 to Decembe 2010 was performed with keywords of “chitosan, tendon, adhesion, sports injury” in Chinese and English to retrieve the articles about chitosan for prevention of tendon adhesion after sports injury. Related articles published recently or in authoritative journals were selected. According to the inclusion criteria, 29 papers were selected.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The tendon is mainly composed of collagen fibers, and its biomechanical properties are closely related to collagen fibers. The healing process of tendon injury consists of two ways: exogenous and endogenous healing. Tendon adhesion often occur in exogenous healing. Previous animal experiments and clinical studies have demonstrated that chitosan has a good preventive effect on tendon adhesion, which mechanisms include reducing the production of collagen fibers, barrier isolation, hemostasis acceleration, and antisepsis and anti-inflammation. Therefore, chitosan is an ideal material to prevent tendon adhesion, but there are still some problems in clinical application to be resolved.