Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Researchers are seeking a fast suture method to elevate repair strength after tendon injury, to do exercises as early as possible, and to prevent tendon adhesion. A damaged tendon (> 3 cm) cannot be directly sutured. At present, it should be repaired by autologous and allogenic tendon transplantation.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the present biomechanics study regarding allogenic tendon transplantation and exercise-induced tendon injury repaired in surgery.
METHODS: We retrieved PubMed Database and China National Knowledge Infrastructure for articles concerning biomechanics of surgical repair of tendon injury and allogenic tendon transplantation published from January 1994 to October 2011. The English key words were “tendon, biomechanical study, repair, suture, allogenetic tendon”. The Chinese key words were “tendon, biomechanics, allogenic transplantation, suture”. Repetitive studies or non-Chinese or non-English studies were excluded. Totally 34 articles were reviewed.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Tendon anastomosous method was detected by biomechanical measure. This can understand which method can satisfy the requirement of early-phase functional exercise, effectively prevent tendon re-breakage and interspace formation at anastomosous site so as to obtain a great safety during postoperative early-phase functional exercise. Deep-frozen and vitrification of allogeneic tendon exhibited similar results in biomechanics as autologous tendon transplantation. Allogeneic tendon can be used for tendon injury by transplantation, instead of autologous tendon.