New research led by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus and published in the journal Brain shows spinal cord injuries can also cause a "paralysis" of the immune system that renders these patients more susceptible to pneumonia and other infections.
Researchers analyzed whether mice with spinal cord injuries were impaired in their ability to mount a host response to combat a controlled infection compared to control (sham) mice with minor injury of the vertebral bones and unaffected spinal cord.
Here are five points:
1. Eighty-six percent of the sham mice were able to clear inoculated bacteria completely from their lung within 24 hours.
2. In contrast, after spinal cord injury, only 35 percent were able to clear inoculated bacteria completely from their lung within 24 hours.
3. The majority, 65 percent, of spinal cord injury animals of different lesion levels displayed elevated bacterial loads in infected lungs after 24 hours.
4. In order to investigate whether these findings are mirrored in patients suffering spinal cord injury, researchers analyzed 1,221 data sets from patients enrolled in the National Spinal Cord Injury Database from 1993 to 2006. There analysis verified patients who suffered a higher spinal cord injury were more likely to develop pneumonia.
5. The research team included members from Charité - Universitatsmedizin, the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Disease and Centre for Spinal Cord Injury Trauma Hospital, all located in Berlin, Germany; as well as Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the U.S.-National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center in Birmingham, Ala.