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A Shot at Avoiding Paralysis? Study Shows Promise for Spinal Injury
An injection, delivered to mice soon after spinal injury, seems to aid recovery.
April 21, 2010— -- Victims of severe spinal injuries may someday be able to avoid paralysis if given a treatment targeting their genes in the hours after they are hurt, according to a new study released today.
Working with lab mice, researchers administered a drug that shut off a gene also found in humans that kicks in following a spinal injury. This gene has been linked to the damage that causes paralysis in people following damage to the spinal cord. By shutting it off, researchers were able to preserve function in the mice, showing that mice treated after injury had one-third to one-fourth of the damage that untreated mice did.
"There's real hope that a very simple drug that's easy to manufacture and should be well tolerated... could be given to patients with acute spinal injury," said Dr. Marc Simard, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and one of the study's authors.
He said that the approach, if successful, could allow doctors to pinpoint treatment to a specific area.
The new therapy targets the gene Abcc8, which prevents cells from being overwhelmed by an influx of calcium in the body. Typically, this is helpful. However, following a spinal injury, this response is triggered and allows the cells to keep out calcium, but also to be overwhelmed with sodium, killing the cells.
The effects of that cell death ultimately can lead to paralysis.
"There's really hope -- the way there has not been hope in forever," Simard said.
The research appears in the most recent issue of Science Translational Medicine.
"It's very novel, it's very exciting, and our greatest hope is the investigators will continue to pursue this to some translation, which I realize is a tall order," said Susan Howley, executive vice president of research for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which gave partial financial support to the research.
"It's certainly worth going down every pathway and exploring it, because what the next guy finds might be a real improvement on what's currently out there," Howley said, noting that the gene therapy in the current study is one of several avenues being explored for spine injury.
Howley said that while the results in mice are encouraging, clinical trials in humans will take time and moving this research to treatment in people could take 12 to 20 years.
"The more we can educate people and set reasonable expectations, the better off everyone is," said Howley.
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