Peripheral nerve injury impairs motor, sensory, and autonomic function, incurring substantial ifnancial costs and diminished quality of life. For large nerve gaps, proximal lesions, or chronic nerve injury, the prognosis for recovery is particularly poor, even with autografts, the current gold standard for treating small to moderate nerve gaps. In vivo elongation of intact proximal stumps towards the injured distal stumps of severed peripheral nerves may offer a promising new strategy to treat nerve injury. This review describes several nerve lengthening strategies, in-cluding a novel internal ifxator device that enables rapid and distal reconnection of proximal and distal nerve stumps.

Phrenic nerve transfer is a major dynamic treatment used to repair brachial plexus root avulsion. We analyzed 72 relevant articles on phrenic nerve transfer to repair injured brachial plexus that were indexed by Science Citation Index. The keywords searched were brachial plexus injury, phrenic nerve, repair, surgery, protection, nerve transfer, and nerve graft. In addition, we per-formed neurophysiological analysis of the preoperative condition and prognosis of 10 patients undergoing ipsilateral phrenic nerve transfer to the musculocutaneous nerve in our hospital from 2008 to 201 3 and observed the electromyograms of the biceps brachii and motor conduc-tion function of the musculocutaneous nerve. Clinically, approximately 28% of patients had brachial plexus injury combined with phrenic nerve injury, and injured phrenic nerve cannot be used as a nerve graft. After phrenic nerve transfer to the musculocutaneous nerve, the regener-ated potentials ifrst appeared at 3 months. Recovery of motor unit action potential occurred 6 months later and became more apparent at 12 months. The percent of patients recovering ‘ex-cellent’ and ‘good’ muscle strength in the biceps brachii was 80% after 18 months. At 12 months after surgery, motor nerve conduction potential appeared in the musculocutaneous nerve in seven cases. These data suggest that preoperative evaluation of phrenic nerve function may help identify the most appropriate nerve graft in patients with an injured brachial plexus. The func-tional recovery of a transplanted nerve can be dynamically observed after the surgery.

Brachial plexus injury is frequently induced by injuries, accidents or birth trauma. Upper limb function may be partially or totally lost after injury, or left permanently disabled. With the de-velopment of various medical technologies, different types of interventions are used, but their effectiveness is wide ranging. Many repair methods have phasic characteristics, i.e., repairs are done in different phases. This study explored research progress and hot topic methods for pro-tection after brachial plexus injury, by analyzing 1,797 articles concerning the repair of brachial plexus injuries, published between 2004 and 2013 and indexed by the Science Citation Index database. Results revealed that there are many methods used to repair brachial plexus injury, and their effects are varied. Intervention methods include nerve transfer surgery, electrical stimula-tion, cell transplantation, neurotrophic factor therapy and drug treatment. Therapeutic methods in this ifeld change according to the hot topic of research.

In the treatment of brachial plexus injury, nerves that are functionally less important are trans-ferred onto the distal ends of damaged crucial nerves to help recover neuromuscular function in the target region. For example, intercostal nerves are transferred onto axillary nerves, and accessory nerves are transferred onto suprascapular nerves, the phrenic nerve is transferred onto the musculocutaneous nerves, and the contralateral C7 nerve is transferred onto the median or radial nerves. Nerve transfer has become a major method for reconstructing the brachial plexus after avulsion injury. Many experiments have shown that nerve transfers for treatment of brachi-al plexus injury can help reconstruct cerebral cortical function and increase cortical plasticity. In this review article, we summarize the recent progress in the use of diverse nerve transfer methods for the repair of brachial plexus injury, and we discuss the impact of nerve transfer on cerebral cortical plasticity after brachial plexus injury.

副神经移位修复肩胛上神经的入路术式比较

副神经移位治疗臂丛神经根性撕脱伤是经典术式,副神经是治疗臂丛神经损伤常用的移位动力神经之一[1].肩胛上神经支配的冈上肌、冈下肌是肩关节外展的"启动肌",又是上举的"主要肌"和上臂外旋的"关键肌",修复肩胛上神经对臂丛神经损伤患者肩关节功能恢复的具有重要作用.副神经是斜方肌的主要支配神经,斜方肌上部对于维持肩部外形和完成耸肩、肩外展动作非常重要.而副神经与肩胛上神经距离近,用副神经移位于肩胛上神经已是常规术式[2-3].