Bovine fetal collagen reinforcement in a small animal model of hernia with component repair

BackgroundComponent separation is a surgical strategy used to achieve abdominal wall reconstruction for patients with significant ventral hernias. With an increasing number of variations in procedural techniques and materials, the development of a small animal model of this surgery would allow for the controlled evaluation of variables with analytics not available in human clinical studies. To test this model, we investigated the reinforcement of these component repairs in rats with a bovine fetal collagen (BFC) scaffold.MethodsFifty Sprague Dawley rats were randomized into either component repair alone or BFC reinforced component repair. At time points up to 1 y, these groups were evaluated for hernia formation, strength of repair, strength of mesh-muscle interface, and histology of the repair site.ResultsAnterior component separation was achievable and reproducible in this small animal model. Significantly fewer hernias were found in BFC reinforced repairs. The change in transverse abdominal length was lower for reinforced repairs indicating less external oblique retraction, and reinforced repairs were consistently stronger than controls through 1 y. BFC was revascularized and repopulated with host cells but not rapidly degraded.ConclusionsThis small animal model of hernia repair with anterior component separation was effective in evaluating the reinforcement of a hernia repair with mesh. It may be useful in future work for the controlled, comparative investigation of different repair techniques and mesh materials in anterior component separation hernia repairs. Additionally, bovine fetal collagen was found to effectively reinforce component repairs and undergo an assimilation process including rapid revascularization and repopulation with host cells followed by gradual extracellular matrix remodeling.