Research related to secondary complications of spinal cord injury is underfunded despite patients identifying them as their most impactful daily burden, according to an op-ed published Sept. 4 in Spinal Cord.
Spinal cord injury represents roughly 1% of U.S. disease burden but receives 0.2% of NIH funding. Additionally, SCI research received $986 million from 2013 to 2023. Between 2017 and 2023, $225 million funded movement/mobility studies, compared with $130 million for pain, bladder and bowel dysfunction, pressure injuries and all other complications combined.
The authors called for researchers, clinicians and advocates to better align research funding, clinical training and policy with the complications experienced by people with chronic SCI, specifically bowel and bladder dysfunction, autonomic dysreflexia, pressure injuries, and neuropathic pain.
The article was written by Alexander Rabchevsky, PhD, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center in Lexington; and Marco Sorani, a volunteer at Unite 2 Fight Paralysis, a nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis and an executive at BeOne Medicines, a biopharmaceutical firm specializing in cancer treatments. Both have lived with chronic SCI themselves.
Cervical SCI carries the second-highest disability weight among 234 conditions in the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease framework. The authors also highlighted a shortage of trained SCI physiatrists and challenges with underpowered and poorly reproducible preclinical research.
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