Minimizing Secondary Injury in Patient With SCI Using Expansive Duroplasty

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is associated with devastating personal burdens including paralysis, sensory changes, autonomic dysfunction, and chronic debilitating pain. Few effective treatments have been developed with standard of care consisting of state-of-the-art neurocritical care, timely surgical decompression, and rehabilitation. While a variety of novel neuroprotective and neuroregenerative approaches have been posited, clinical trials to date have failed to demonstrate associated clinical benefits.

Current therapies are primarily aimed at reducing secondary injury processes, which are related to inflammation and ischemia, that persist over days-to-weeks following the primary mechanical insult. Intraparenchymal progressive hemorrhagic necrosis and swelling within the restrictive physical barrier of the pial and dural layers leads to further compression and ischemia, propagating the secondary injury cascade.

Early surgical bony decompression following SCI is thought to improve clinical outcomes, specifically after cervical-level injuries.

While few developments have been made in actual surgical techniques beyond bony decompression, early reports suggest that reduction of intraspinal pressure (ISP) could reduce secondary injury. Long-recognized but not clinically employed techniques to reduce ISP involve fashioning a dorsal midline myelotomy to allow for intramedullary decompression of hematoma and necrotic tissue and expansion of the dural compartment by opening the dura and sewing in of an expansive patch.

Corollary techniques have long been standard-of-care following cranial trauma: removal of the calvarial bone, evacuation of hematoma, expansive dural closure, and treatment of intra-cranial pressure have been proven effective in several randomized clinical trials.