The work of the spinal cord is to transmit information between the brain and the rest of the body. An acute injury to the spinal cord can affect the motor skills or result in paralysis. Can spinal cord injury treatment with stem cells help to improve the conditions in patients?

A spinal cord injury is a mutilation to the spinal cord caused by an accident, fall, a gun shot or a heavy object. The injury can cause reversible or irreversible physical changes in the motor function of the patients. Symptoms include loss of sensation, muscle function or autonomic function in the parts of the body below the place of the injury. At times the spinal cords gets completely severed resulting complete paralysis.

Signs and symptoms

The signs and symptoms of a spinal cord injury (post-accident) include:

• Extreme back pain accompanied by trauma and extreme stress in the neck and head
• Weakness or paralysis in the body
• Numbness in the toes or fingers and loss of sensation in hands or feet
• Loss of bowel or bladder control
• Difficulty while breathing
• An oddly positioned neck or back

A person with significant trauma to his/her head and neck or having any of the above symptoms need immediate medical attention of well-known neurosurgeons at a hospital like NeuroGen Brain and Spine Institute in Mumbai. They are the medics who can rule out the possibility or assess the level and the severity of a spinal cord injury and also provide apt spinal cord injury treatment.

Protocols

The treatment protocol assigned by the physicians at the hospital include:

• Physical examination, blood testing, MRIs and x-rays
• Bone marrow collection
• Infusion of the treated cells
• Physical therapy sessions

Treatment

Stem cells are the repair cells! An inadequate quantity of healthy cells or a bunchdamage cells can lead to the damage of the tissues and nerves. These damaged organs and tissues can disrupt the normal operations of the entire body.  For a spinal cord injury treatment, the mesenchymal stem cells derived from the bone marrow tissue are used to repair the damage to the spinal cord.

When treating the patients with stem cells, the bone marrow is collected under the strict sterile conditions of an operation theatre. With an aspirate needle, the marrow is collected and processed using the density gradient centrifugation method. The separated healthy cells also undergo microscopic, microbiologic and serologic testing. These cells are intrathecally injected into the spine from where they move towards the damaged area to indulge in the healing process.

The body’s immune system recognizes the bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells as they are got from the patient himself and therefore are not rejected. These mesenchymal stem cells are considered to be more ‘potent’ than other stem cells and approved for treating spinal cord injury and various neurological disorders.

The mesenchymal stem cells, harvested from bone marrow, helps to prevent the activation of inflammatory responses and show functional recovery in spinal cord injury patients.