Understanding of the Pathogenesis of Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury and Possible Ways of Therapeutic Intervention: Literature Review

Abstract

The paper presents a literature review on the pathogenesis of traumatic spinal cord injury. Spinal and spinal cord injury is of particular significance in the structure of human traumatic injuries due to the severity of socioeconomic consequences, difficulties of treatment, and high rate of disability among injured persons. In recent years, there has been a clear upward trend in the frequency of injuries to the spine and spinal cord. The spinal cord is an essential part of the nervous system having great physiological significance for the integrative activity. The total effect of spinal cord injury can be estimated as the sum of primary destruction of the nervous tissue and secondary extensive apoptosis near the injury site and at a distance from it. This results in the development of complex structural and functional changes manifested in multiple neurotrophic, metabolic, dyscirculatory and infectious complications, which greatly aggravate traumatic disease as a whole and affect vi- tal functions of a patient immediately after spinal cord injury and in the late period. The current understanding of possible ways of therapeutic intervention to improve the existing treatment strategy for patients with spinal cord injury is reviewed.

Keywords

• spinal cord injury
• apoptosis
• necrosis
• inflammation
• neurotoxicity