Spinal cord implantation with acidic fibroblast growth factor as a treatment for root avulsion in obstetric brachial plexus palsy.

ABSTRACT

Nerve root avulsion carries the worst prognosis among brachial plexus injuries and remains a great challenge for surgeons to repair. In this case, a boy with complete avulsion of the left-side C6 root presented with flaccid paralysis of the left arm after birth. As there was no significant spontaneous recovery, the patient underwent operation when he was 6 months old. One end of the nerve graft from the sural nerve was anastomosed with the avulsed C6 root, and the other end was implanted into the ventrolateral aspect of the spinal cord with fibrin glue containing acidic fibroblast growth factor. After 2 years of follow-up, there has been significant improvement in motor function and in electrophysiologic studies over the left upper limb.