Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2019 , Vol 65 , Num 1

Effect of topical rifamycin application on epidural fibrosis in rats

Cem Dinç 1 ,Cengiz Tuncer 1 ,Mehmet Erhan Türkoğlu 2 ,Mehmet Tokmak 3 ,Pınar Ocak 1 ,Uygur Er 1
1 Department of Neurosurgery, Düzce University School of Medicine, Düzce, Turkey
2 Department of Neurosurgery, Ministry of Health, Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
3 Department of Neurosurgery, Medipol University, School of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkey
DOI : 10.5606/tftrd.2019.2442 Objectives: This study aims to investigate the effects of topical rifamycin SV application on epidural fibrosis formation in a rat model.

Materials and methods: Between March 2015 and April 2015, a total of 20 Wistar rats were equally and randomly divided into laminectomy only group (control group) and laminectomy and rifamycin SV group (treatment group). Laminectomy was performed between L3-L5 in all rats. Surgical field was irrigated with 1 mL rifamycin SV (1 mL). After four weeks, vertebral columns of the rats were removed en bloc between the L1 and L5 levels, and epidural fibrosis and arachnoid involvement were histopathologically evaluated and graded.

Results: Grade 3 epidural fibrosis formation ratio was lower in the treatment group (40%) compared to the control group (80%). However, there was no statistically significant difference between the treatment and control groups in terms of epidural fibrosis (p=0.164) and arachnoid involvement (p=0.303).

Conclusion: Intraoperative rifamycin irrigation tends to reduce epidural fibrosis formation risk, although not statistically significant. Keywords : Epidural fibrosis, laminectomy, rifamycin