Abstract
As one major problem after tendon rupture repair, surgeons are confronted with fibrotic adhesion formation of the healing tendon to the surrounding tissue. Although early active motion is recommended during rehabilitation, adhesions may lead to joint stiffness and a restricted range of motion. One viable option to counteract adhesion formation is to add a thin elastic tube that is placed over the conventionally sutured repair site. Such a tube reduces adhesion formation because it acts as a physical barrier. Additionally, such barriers can be optimized by adding a biolubricant. We here present adhesion data of rabbit Achilles tendons that were fully transsected, repaired with a 4-strand suture and received a) no implant; b) an electrospun DegraPol tube and c) a bi-layered tube with one electrospun DegraPol layer and one high molecular weight hyaluronic acid (HA)/polyethylene oxide (PEO) electrospun layer. Based on Picrosirius red stained tendon cross-sections three weeks post-operation, the percentage of adhesion data is presented. Moreover, mechanical data of the implant materials are presented as a further dataset, with the following readouts: fracture strain [%], ultimate tensile stress [MPa] and Young's modulus [MPa]. They are presented in axial and transverse stretching directions, respectively. The adhesion data can be reused for comparison to other implant materials, drugs or anti-adhesive strategies that are applied in similar pre-clinical models like the rabbit Achilles tendon model. The mechanical data of the implant materials offer the possibility to compare electrospun meshes based on other polymers to the materials used here or for computational models of such materials.