[Acute traumatic spinal cord injuries: Epidemiology and prospects]

Specify the epidemiological data on the acute spinal cord injuries and define a group of patients that could benefit from cellular transplantation therapy designed with the aim of repair and regeneration of damaged spinal cord tissues.

Five years monocentric (Gui-de-Chauliac Hospital, Montpellier, France) retrospective analysis of patients suffering from spinal cord injury (SCI). Spinal cord injured-patients, defined as sensory-motor complete, underwent a clinical evaluation following American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) and functional type 2 Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM2) scorings as well as radiological evaluation through spinal cord magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

One hundred and fifty-seven medical records were reviewed and we selected and re-examined 20 patients with complete thoracic spinal cord lesion. Clinical and radiological evaluations of these patients demonstrated, in 75 % of the cases, an absence of clinical progression after a mean of 49months. Radiological abnormalities were constantly present in the initial (at the admission to hospital) and control (re-evaluation) MRI and no reliable predictive criteria of prognosis had been found.

We compare our results to the literature and discuss advantages and limits of cellular transplantation strategies for these patients.