<![CDATA[Background: Current tracheal defect management is still controversial for surgeons because there areno ideal materials to substitute trachea and many long-term complications occur in patients after trachealreconstruction. Prosthetic graft has the risks of chronic infection and post-reconstructive tracheal stenosis.Dried Amniotic Membrane (DAM) expresses several endogenous matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) genesthat can degrade extracellular matrix. Therefore, DAM is expected to be able to degrade collagen formedexcessively during the wound healing phase, hence post-reconstruction stenosis will not occur. This studyaimed to evaluate the differences of collagen density between polypropylene mesh (only) and DAM-addedpolypropylene mesh as graft in tracheal reconstruction.Methods: The animals used in this study were 36 male white rabbits, which were divided into twogroups. Both groups were wounded in the trachea area. The defects from the first group were closed usingpolypropylene mesh, while the defects from the second group were closed using DAM-added polypropylenemesh. After 30 days, the collagen density of each group was assessed.Results: In the first group there are 10 samples (55.56%) with collagen density score = 3, while in the secondgroup there are 16 samples (88.89%) with collagen density score = 2. The significance value using MannWhitney U test for differences in the collagen density score in both groups is p = 0.407.Conclusion: Tracheal reconstruction using polypropylene mesh along with DAM provides a lower collagendensity score than using polypropylene mesh alone as a graft, but it is not statistically significant.]]>
