The influence of dose of microspheres on nerve blood flow, electrophysiology, and fiber degeneration of rat peripheral nerve.

Microsphere embolization of peripheral nerve results in a variable degree of ischemic fiber degeneration. To enhance the utility of the model, we evaluated the relationship between dose of microspheres to the supplying arteries of the sciatic-tibial nerve to nerve blood flow (NBF), electrophysiology, morphology, and behavioral changes. There was considerable variability in the effect of embolization on nerve pathology in individual nerves. However, the dose of microspheres regressed with the degree of hindlimb paresis, reduction in NBF, degree of fiber pathology, and ischemic conduction failure of the tibial nerve, evaluated at day 7. All nerves with severe (grade 4) fiber degeneration had flows of < 3 mL x 100 g-1 x min-1. We conclude that it is possible to predict with a high degree of accuracy the severity of fiber degeneration by the degree of NBF reduction and by the electrophysiologic abnormalities.