Background: The incidences of tendon injuries in certain sections of human or animal populations such as athletes\r\nare high, but every human or animal, regardless of age or level of activity experiences some degree of tendon\r\ninjury. In spite of the various investigations of injuries and treatment, comprehensive studies dealing with the\r\nhistological, ultrastructural and biomechanical aspects of healing of load-bearing tendons are rare. This study was\r\ndesigned to compare the outcome of healing of the transverse sectioned superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT)\r\nafter 28 and 84 days post injury (DPI) in rabbits.\r\nMethods: Forty white New Zealand mature female rabbits were randomly divided into two equal groups of 28 and\r\n84 DPI After tenotomy and surgical repair of the left SDFT, the injured legs were casted for 14 days. The weight of\r\nthe animals, tendon diameter, and clinical, radiographic and ultrasonographic evaluations were conducted at weekly\r\nintervals. The animals were euthanized on 28 and 84 DPI and the tendons were evaluated for histopathological,\r\nultrastructural, biomechanical and percentage dry weight parameters.\r\nResults: Although the clinical, ultrastructural, morphological and biomechanical properties of the injured tendons\r\non day 84 showed a significant improvement compared to those of the 28 DPI, these parameters were still\r\nsignificantly inferior to their normal contra-lateral tendons.\r\nConclusions: This study showed that tendon healing is very slow and at 84 days post-injury the morphological and\r\nbiomechanical parameters were still inferior to the normal tendons and many collagen fibrils still had the same\r\ndiameter as those seen at 28 DPI.
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