Abstract
Intraspinal transplantation of olfactory glial cells (OGC) has produced well-defined beneficial effects in experimental rodent models of spinal cord injury (SCI) and therefore has considerable promise as a treatment for severe SCI in human patients. In this study, we used clinical canine cases of severe SCI to determine whether derivation and transplantation of OGC from an autologous source was feasible. From the nerve fiber layer of a single olfactory bulb, we were able to generate 5 × 106 cells from each patient within 3 weeks. Of this population, 72% were p75+ OGC, 20% were meningeal cells, and the remainder mainly astrocytes. Intraspinal transplantation was not associated with any observable long- or short-term complications.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.