When repairing sensory nerves, it often does not make sense to remove another sensory nerve from the leg as a source of graft. Therefore, in this situation, if a direct repair is not possible, small absorbable tubes are used instead.

In general, as long as the nerve gap is less than 2-3cm, conduit repair works nearly as well as graft repair. An alternative is to use a vein conduit, which has a similar efficacy. Conduits are also used to wrap nerves to protect them from nearby scar tissue.

Synthetic nerve conduit (asterisk) used to repair a sensory branch from the radial nerve (proximal and distal nerve ends--arrowheads).