Effect of Bovine Collagen Addition on Early Biomechanical Strength of Sutured Rabbit Achilles Tendon

Introduction.Tendon rupture due to various causes is common issue in orthopaedics. Its management is oftendifficult and still debatable due to causing some complications such are re-rupture, adhesion, and gap formation.Suturing technique, early rehabilitation, and tissue engineering have been proposed to overcome these circumstances.Collagen scaffold is one of the tissue engineering technique which used in this research to find the improvement oftendon healing biomechanically, in order to have an early rehabilitation is more possible. The objective is this studyto prove increase on Achilles tendon suture biomechanically after bovine tendon triple helix collagen strand oncertain period.Materials and methods.Rabbit Achilles tendons for model were cut then sutured with 2 strand modified Kesslertechnique. These rabbits were randomly selected into 3 groups: sutured only, sutured with collagen sponge on-lay,and sutured with collagen sponge inserted between stumps plus on-lay additions. The rabbits were sacrificed onday 10 afterwards. The tendons were tested on the sutured site by traction machine until 4 mm gap formed (tensilestrength) then continued until totally ruptured (ultimate strength). The result is analyzed by Anova test.Results.Tensile strength shows improvement on the collagen groups other than on sutured only (p<0.05). Theultimate strength among groups is not significantly different, either collagen groups or non collagen one (p=0.689;p>0.05).Conclusions. Bovine collagen addition as scaffold shows better biomechanical result in early tensile strength ofruptured tendon