Pre-injury Treatment of Methylprednisolone in Experimental Spinal Cord Injury

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to establish whether pre-injury administration of the methylprednisolone sodium succinate(MP) is effective for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury in rat, as it has ben demonstrated that high dose of MP is effective in the treatment of acute spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injury was made by dropping a rod weighing 10 gm from a height of 1.25, 2.5, and 5.0cm onto the rat spinal cord at T-10, which had been exposed via laminectomy. In order to determine the effectiveness, single dose of 5, 15 and 30mg/kg of MP was administrated at 10 minute before injury. The primary outcome was 24-hour spinal cord lesion volume estimated from spinal cord Na+ and K+ shifts. Surprisingly, we failed to find any statistically significant preventive effect compare to control vehicle. Until this result is clearfied, we recommend that acute pre-injury MP therapy be cautiously applied in operating room. The possible causes of this unexpected result are discussed.