Tendons are soft connective tissues consisting of parallel collagen fibers embedded within an extracellular matrix. Blood supply to the tendon is reported to be poor and, as a result, healing often progresses slowly. Autogenic, allogeneic, and xenogeneic tendon transplantations have been performed in reconstructive tendon surgery; however, there is little information on fresh allogeneic tendon transplantation experimentally. The aim of this study is to evaluate fresh autogenous and allogenous tendon graft in the rabbit to determine which gives the better result, clinically and histopathologically. Ten 1-year-old male New Zealand Albino rabbits weighing 3.5 ± 0.5 kg were used in this study. In five rabbits (group I), about 3 cm of the superficial flexor tendon was resected and a created defect was filled with the same 3-cm harvested tendon and sutured with 2/0 polypropylene in a single modified Kessler suture pattern and the tendon sheath was sutured over the transplanted tendon completely. In the remaining five rabbits (group II), the harvested segment was changed between rabbits and created defects were filled with changed segment allogenous tendon, all other procedures were identical to group I. The main histopathological and gross evaluation showed graft acceptance by recipients in both groups. Our results showed that no significant tissue reaction or graft rejection was observed when fresh allogeneic tendon was transplanted in a rabbit model.

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