Abstract:

BACKGROUND: With the establishment of exogenous and endogenous healing theory of the tendon, how to suppress exogenous healing and promote endogenous healing is the key for treatment of tendon adhesion. The anti-adhesion barrier surrounding the tendon is the focus in recent years.
OBJECTIVE: To review the progress of anti-adhesion materials in repair of exercise-induced tendon rupture.
METHODS: A computer search of PubMed and VIP databases for anti-adhesion biomaterials articles published from January 1990 to December 2010 were retrieved by using key words of “tendon adhesion, absorbability antiseize continually membrane, anti-adhesion membrane” in English and “tendon rupture, tendon adhesion, anti-adhesion membrane, biomaterial, sports injury” in Chinese. Finally, 25 articles were included.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Studies about the current anti-adhesion materials for the tendon have achieved remarkable results; however, there are different advantages and disadvantages of different materials. For example, biomembranes instead of tendon sheath inhibit exogenous healing, but they also block the penetration of nutrients, which is not conductive to tendon healing; drug films with barrier isolation reduce exogenous healing to prevent tendon adhesion, which has good prospects for clinical application; absorbable materials have good biocompatibility, but their adhesive force, mechanical strength and retention time need to be further studied; second operation is used to remove nonabsorbable materials due to poor permeability, which have not been used in clinic; some materials with toxic side effects and severe inflammatory reaction have been basically no longer used clinically. These issues should be studied and solved before anti-adhesion materials are really applied in the treatment of tendon adhesion and functional reconstruction.