TUESDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- Carefully timed microsurgery to relieve fluid buildup and radiation to eliminate cells that interfere with repair nearly doubles the repair and preservation of injured spinal cord in rats, according to a study in the July 18 issue of PLoS ONE.
Nurit Kalderon, Ph.D., and colleagues from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center in New York City made a severe crush injury in the spinal cords of rats similar to human crush/fracture injury. They then performed a partial myelotomy (midline slits) to relieve fluid buildup, or treated the rats with surgery followed by radiation to eliminate cells that interfere with repair.
The researchers found that surgery alone within 24 hours of the injury significantly enhanced tissue and functional preservation. Surgery performed within one hour of the injury plus radiation given for 10 days starting on day 10 led to further significant increases in tissue repair and preservation compared with surgery alone, with the combined treatments improving tissue repair and preservation 1.8-fold over no treatment. Exercise also improved hind limb function and tissue preservation, they noted.
"The data suggest that a clinical protocol could be developed to treat acute human spinal cord injury through conventional clinical procedures, a combination of microsurgical manipulation and radiation therapy," Kalderon and colleagues concluded. "These also suggest it is imperative to first prevent the secondary damage caused by fluid accumulation for a cure to be possible," the researchers added.
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