The effectiveness of acellular nerve allografts compared to autografts in animal models: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Our review shows that the included studies, investigating the use of acellular allografts, showed a large variance in methodological design and are as a consequence difficult to compare. Nevertheless, our results indicate that treating a nerve gap with an allograft results in an inferior nerve recovery compared to an autograft in seven out of eight outcomes assessed in experimental animals. In addition, based on our preliminary post hoc subgroup analyses we suggest that when an allograft is being used an allograft in short and medium (0-1cm, > 1-2cm) nerve gaps is preferred over an allograft in long (> 2cm) nerve gaps.