Research has shown that penetrating soft tissue injuries can cause muscle loss resulting in functional disability and cosmetic deformity.

Xiaowu Wu, MD, Benjamin T. Corona, PhD, Xiaoyu Chen, PhD, and Thomas J. Walters, PhD, United States Army Institute of Surgical Research (Fort Sam Houston, TX), Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (Winston-Salem, NC), and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, provide a detailed description of the methods used to create an animal model with approximately 20% volumetric muscle loss (VML) from the middle third of the tibialis anterior muscle. The authors demonstrate successful repair of the injury using a biological scaffold and present their findings in A Standardized Rat Model of Volumetric Muscle Loss Injury for the Development of Tissue Engineering Therapies."
Source-Eurekalert