Abstract
Medical care costs can reach an estimated value of $4 billion for spinal cord injuries (SCI) each year in the USA alone. With no viable treatment options available, care remains palliative and aims to minimize lifelong disabilities and complications, such as immobility, bladder and bowel dysfunction, breathing problems, and blood clots. Human hair keratin biomaterials have demonstrated efficacy in peripheral nerve injury models and were shown to improve conduction delay and increase axon number and density. In this study, a keratin hydrogel was tested in a central nervous system (CNS) application of spinal cord hemisection injury. Keratin-treated rats showed increased survival rates as well as a better functional recovery of gait properties and bladder function. Histological results demonstrated reduced glial scar formation with keratin treatment and suggested a greater degree of beneficial remodeling and cellular influx. The data provided in this pilot study suggest the possibility of using a keratin-based treatment for SCI and warrant further investigation.
Highlights
More than 2.5 million people worldwide are effected by spinal cord injuries (SCI), with approximately 12,000 new cases each year in USA alone [1]
The keratintreated rat’s bladder has some instability during the filling phase (Figure 2(c)), it is much closer to a normal micturition pattern (Figure 2(a)), as it shows a regular pattern of definite voids coupled with pressure spikes and uninhibited contractions between voids (Figure 2(c))
This study demonstrated consistent findings in this regard, as seen at 6 weeks after hemisection where the keratin treatment group spinal cords showed greater remodeling (Figure 5), which is the time point at which the greatest functional recovery appeared to take place (Figures 2 and 4)
Summary
More than 2.5 million people worldwide are effected by spinal cord injuries (SCI), with approximately 12,000 new cases each year in USA alone [1]. The majority of these cases are caused by motor vehicle accidents (36.5%) and falls (28.5%) and predominantly affect young males (80.7%) [1]. SCI injury has an even greater impact when lifetime costs are considered, which reach millions per patient. Taking into account the fact that the majority of patients are young, active people who are relegated to long-term palliative care, these numbers increase even more when considering loss of productivity and income wages [1]
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