Vertebrectomy and its possible use in repair of spinal cord injuries by neural transplantation

Spinal cord (SC) injury followed by autodestruction and resection of damaged tissue necessarily leads to the formation of a gap between the disconnected cord stumps. For any attempts to reconstruct the transected cord it may accordingly be useful to narrow or close this gap. Physically this can be achieved by vertebral resection with shortening of the spinal column. In cats and rabbits the dynamics of SC autodestruction was examined, and a technique for removal of autodestructed tissue developed, together with a surgical technique for resection of the second lumbar vertebra. By means of these techniques the volume of the gap between the SC stumps in rabbits was reduced from 200 mm3 to almost zero. In future research this should allow use of neural grafts of a reasonably small volume.