of early drug administration on experimental spinal cord injury

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This project was planned to investigate effects of methylprednisolone (MP) on spinal cord blood flow (SCBF) after spinal cord injury in the rat. Twenty Wistar rats received acute clip compression injury of the T7-8 spinal cord at 140g for 3 seconds. Thirty minutes after injury, the rats received intravenous injection of saline, 30mg/kg, or 60mg/kg MP.At 2 hours after injury, SCBF was measured with the autoradiographic technique at the injury site and the adjacent areas. In the saline and 30mg/kg MP groups. SCBF was also measured at 6 hours after injury. Five rats were used for normal controls. To estimate the severity of the experimental spina cord injury, 4 rats underwent the clip compression injury and the motor function was examined weekly with an inclined plane method for 6 weeks. At 2 hours after injury, SCBF of the gray matter was severely decreased at the injurysite and adjacent areas in all rats. The white matter SCBF was also markedly decreased at the injury site. At the rostral and caudal sites, SCBF of the white matter was significantly decreased in the 30mg/kg and 60 mg/kg MP groups. However, the white matter SCBF in the saline group was not decreased at the rostral sites, and was slightly increased at the caudal areas. At 6 hours after injury, SCBFs of the gray and white matter were progressively decreased in the saline and 30mg/kg MP groups. There was no significant difference of the SCBF values at 6 hours between the groups. Thus, posttraumatic SCBF was progressivaly decreased at least until 6 hours after injury. Treatment with 30mg/kg or 60mg/kg MP did not improve the posttraumatic ischemia in the rat spinal cord.