July 2021

NEUROSCIENCES

RECONSTRUCTION FOR BRACHIAL PLEXUS INJURY

Featuring: Kevin N. Swong, MD

Episode Summary

Kevin N. Swong, MD, assistant professor of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern Medicine, discusses trauma to and reconstruction of the brachial plexus. He describes how patient outcomes have improved because of surgical innovations and his team’s multidisciplinary approach to the management of brachial plexus injuries.
 
“The mainstay of treatment [for brachial plexus injuries] was neuroma excision, where we would cut out the nonfunctioning neural tissue and then replace it with donor nerve grafts, most likely from sensory nerves in other places in the body,” says Dr. Swong. “What has become more prevalent is what’s called nerve transfers. So the issue with nerve grafts or when you cut out a neuroma, any functioning tissue that’s still going through that neuroma is essentially removed with that nonfunctioning tissue. And nerve graft allows that functioning tissue to still continue to work, but supplies a functioning nerve from another part of the body. In essence, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, because we’re taking nerves from a functional part of the body and rerouting them to a part of the body that doesn’t work.”
​Kevin N. Swong, MD, is an assistant professor of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern Medicine.

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