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Personal injury news
Surgeons offer hope following spinal cord injury
Finding a cure for spinal cord injury is the dream of many medical professionals who want to help the thousands of people worldwide who are affected by the condition. And for many years such a cure has been seen as just that, a dream.
Early in 2006, however, surgeons will take a huge step towards making that dream a reality when they finally attempt to mend the severed nerves of young people who have suffered spinal cord injury as a result of crippling motorcycle accidents. It is the first trial of a simple but potentially revolutionary technology that could, if successful, one day allow the paralysed to walk again.
Ten operations will be conducted on humans to test a technique that has been pioneered in animals by neuroscientist Professor Geoffrey Raisman, head of the spinal repair unit at University College, London. Over two decades ago he discovered that cells from the lining of the nose constantly regenerate themselves, allowing continual repair and recovery. Now, after twenty years of further research and development, Professor Raisman believes that if those cells were implanted at the site of the spinal cord injury they would build a bridge across the break, allowing the nerve fibres to knit back together.
Actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralysed after falling from a horse, was a follower of Raisman’s work, and they had planned to meet shortly before Reeve died. Professor Raisman has made it clear that his initial operations will not enable someone as badly injured as Christopher Reeve to walk again, but it is possible that they could heal the common motorcycle injury sustained when nerves in the arms become detached from the spinal cord; at present, injuries of this type are inoperable.
Professor Raisman said yesterday, “If this works well, it opens the door to an enormous area; this is a door which has never been opened.” The possibilities for the treatment of spinal cord injury are truly amazing.
