- Innovative surgery for a broken spinal cord - what is it?
- What are glial cells?
- Will the paralyzed be able to walk?
- See the interview with prof. Włodzimierz Jarmundowicz and Dariusz Fidyka
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Will the paralyzed be able to walk? Such hope is given by the successful surgery of a broken spinal cord performed by doctors from the University Teaching Hospital in Wrocław. The patient, who until recently was paralyzed from the chest down, regained feeling in his legs after the procedure and is able to walk practically on his own. What is the innovative operation that got the disabled person on his feet?
The operation of the torn spinal cord , which was performed by doctors from the Department of Neurosurgery of the University Teaching Hospital in Wrocław, gives the paralyzed hope to regain full fitness. There is evidence that an innovative method of treatment of a seemingly irreversible spinal cord injury is effective. Darek Fidyka, now 40, who was paralyzed in 2010, has regained (though not 100%) feeling in his legs after surgery in a hospital in Wrocław, and 18 months after the operation he walks on his own with the help of rehabilitation equipment. The man is not the first patient to undergo innovative therapy, but the first to get out of a wheelchair thanks to it.
Innovative surgery for a broken spinal cord - what is it?
The operation which took place one and a half years ago under the supervision of neurosurgeons - prof. Włodzimierz Jarmundowicz and Dr. Paweł Tabakow, involved implantingglial olfactory cellsinto the broken spinal cord, which had previously been collected from the olfactory bulb in the patient's brain (for this, doctors had to open his skull). Then the cells were multiplied in the laboratory, and when their number exceeded half a million, the procedure was started. During the operation, the surgeons performed over a hundred injections of glial olfactory cells into the damaged spinal cord in order to fill the existing gap, which was 8 mm long (the cells were injected above and below the site of the spinal cord injury). In order for them to have a basis for further multiplication, the doctors had previously taken four pieces of tissue containing nerve fibers from the area of the patient's ankle. Some time after implantation, the glial cells formed a kind of bridge connecting the previously separated parts of the spinal cord. In thishow the damaged core was regenerated.
What are glial cells?
Glial cells are part of the nervous system. They include, among others the olfactory bulb in the brain (this part of the brain is involved, among others, in the transmission and interpretation of olfactory signals). They are also found in large amounts in the mucosa of the nasal cavity. If the neurons in this membrane are damaged, e.g. as a result of inflammation, they are regenerated thanks to glial cells. So the doctors concluded that since glial cells regenerate the olfactory system, they may do the same in the spinal cord. And they decided to collect glial cells, not from the nose, but from the olfactory bulb of the brain, because the cells there have much better regenerative abilities than those found in the nasal cavity.
Will the paralyzed be able to walk?
Three months after the operation (and the intensive rehabilitation that began immediately afterwards), the patient noticed that his left thigh had become more muscular. After six months, with the help of a physiotherapist, he made his first steps, and now he can walk using a rehabilitation walker. The patient also partially regained bladder control and sexual function, and the MRI finally confirmed that the spinal break had closed. Therefore, this operation gives hope to other paralyzed people to regain full fitness. However, scientists emphasize that this is only the first successful operation of this type, so it cannot yet be said that there is an effective method of treating paralysis in people with a ruptured spinal cord.