Abstract:
Spinal cord trauma is a major cause of mortality and morbidity. Although no known treatment for spinal cord injury exists, a limited number of effective treatment modalities and procedures are available that improve secondary injury. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) treatment has been used to assist in neurologic recovery after cranial injury or ischemic stroke. To report the findings on the effectiveness of HBO treatment on rats with experimental traumatic spinal cord injury. Improvement was evaluated through motor strength assessment and nitrite level assay testing. We randomly distributed 40 rats among 5 groups of 8 rats each: sham incurable trauma, induced trauma, HBO treatment begun at the 1st hour, HBO treatment begun at the 6th hour, and HBO treatment begun at the 24th hour. The HBO treatment was administered to rats in three of the groups and conducted in two 90-minute sessions, under an absolute atmospheric pressure of 2.4 at 100% oxygen for 5 days. In the motor strength evaluations, all the rats were observed during the inclined plane test and clinical motor examination on the first, third, and fifth days. In addition, the nitrite levels of spinal cord tissues on the sixth day were also studied.
Yaman, Yaman, Aydın, Var, Temiz, , , , (2014). Hyperbaric oxygen treatment in the experimental spinal cord injury model. The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society, 2014 Sep;14(9):2184-94. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24530437