Articles Tagged: Urinary Tract Infection
The results of a clinical study, recently published in the journal Spinal Cord, indicate that the use of Cran-Max(R) Cranberry Concentrate for people with spinal cord injury resulted in a significant reduction in both the incidence of urinary tract infection (UTI) and the number of subjects with a UTI over a 12-month period. In the randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial, conducted at the Spinal Cord Injury Unit of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Boston, MA, 16 subjects had 21 UTIs while taking the placebo, compared to only six subjects who had seven UTIs while taking the Cran-Max cranberry concentrate. Continue Reading »
Object: Magnesium has been shown to have neuroprotective properties in short-term spinal cord injury (SCI) studies. The authors evaluated the efficacy of magnesium, methylprednisolone, and magnesium plus methylprednisolone in a rat SCI model.
Methods: A moderate-to-severe SCI was produced at T9–10 in rats, which then received saline, magnesium, methylprednisolone, or magnesium plus methylprednisolone within 10 minutes of injury. Continue Reading »
Published: April 7, 2009 | Category:
News No one was sure if Tom Smith was going to be able to chase down the skater that had slipped away from the pack for a breakaway — least of all his own goalie.
According to Smith’s memory, he never made it.
His body tells a much different story.
Smith, a Swampscott native who was playing for the Northern New England team in Hockey Night in Boston’s summer tournament, has no recollection of advancing any further than the red line Continue Reading »
Published: April 6, 2009 | Category:
News Why would Texas hamper its own universities, discouraging them from seeking cures for age-old diseases? Why would state leaders cut the state off from millions of dollars in research funding in the search for those cures? Why would Texas want to brand itself as a state where science and research are held in little regard? The answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t. But that is where Texas is heading if a provision in the Senate’s version of the state budget makes it into law.
The provision, inserted into the proposed budget by Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, would prohibit state funding of research on stem-cell embryos. The provision is a back-door method of legislating on an issue that deserves a vote on its own. Continue Reading »
Published: March 28, 2009 | Category:
News DaVinci Biosciences, in collaboration with Luis Vernaza Hospital in Ecuador, have announced the publication of study results demonstrating the safety and feasibility of its acute and chronic spinal cord injury treatment platform in Cell Transplantation, a peer-reviewed journal focused on regenerative medicine. The study demonstrates that administering adult autologous bone marrow derived stem cells via multiple routes is feasible, safe, and most importantly, improves the quality of life for both acute and chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Continue Reading »
Published: March 26, 2009 | Category:
News Margaret Romph, 5, will be transferring to facility in Maryland
On Jan. 2, the Romph family’s lives changed forever.
A car accident left the youngest, 5-year-old Margaret, with severe injuries, including an injury to her spinal cord that has left her in a wheelchair.
Nearly three months after the accident, Margaret now is undergoing therapy at Ranken Jordan, a pediatric specialty hospital in Maryland Heights, where she was transferred from the University of Missouri-Columbia Hospital Feb. 16.
“She was as stable as the hospital could have gotten her,” said Margaret’s mother, Sherline. “She was ready for the rehab portion of our journey.” Continue Reading »
Published: March 25, 2009 | Category:
News 
Dr. Joanne Stolen
When I taught at Rutgers University, my department chair was Wise Young, a pioneer in spinal chord rehabilitation. The Keck Center, where the research was done, was conveniently in the same building as my honors class, and they graciously gave us tours. This state-of-the-art facility is designed with low lab benches, so wheelchair-bound people can participate in the research and work in the lab. Dr. Young’s lab has been successful in getting a paralyzed rat with spinal chord injury to walk again. Because of the lack of funding in the U.S., foreign countries — especially China — have taken up the cause, and the U.S. is again left behind in scientific research. There is a network of 24 major spinal-cord injury centers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Dr. Young writes: “For nearly eight years, the Bush Administration has suppressed not only embryonic stem cell (ESC) research but all stem cell research, even though stem cells are widely acknowledged by scientists to be the most important biomedical advance of the decade. Continue Reading »
Published: March 23, 2009 | Category:
News UCI scientist is behind the field’s first human clinical trial
Irvine, Calif., UC Irvine’s Hans Keirstead – the neurobiologist behind what will be the world’s first human embryonic stem cell clinical trial – will brief Congress on the state of the field 10-11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 24, in Washington, D.C.
Keirstead will join Robert Klein, a spinal-cord-injury research advocate, and Thomas Okarma, Geron Corp. president and chief executive officer, for the briefing, in Room H-122 of the Capitol. Geron will conduct the clinical trial for Keirstead’s acute-spinal-cord-injury therapy. Continue Reading »
Published: March 21, 2009 | Category:
News 
Hope—and anxiety—run high as the first clinical trial of embryonic-stem-cell therapy begins this summer.
Six weeks before the hoopla over President Barack Obama’s executive order lifting restrictions on embryonic-stem-cell research, Hans Keirstead, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine, was already sipping champagne. In 2005 Keirstead had published a study showing that a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells could make partially paralyzed rats walk. Continue Reading »
Recognition of the benefits of cooling strategies to protect the brain and spinal cord after traumatic injury has led to a wealth of cutting edge research, prime examples of which are featured in a special hypothermia issue of Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The issue will be available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/neu
The issue includes a series of original articles presenting experimental and clinical evidence to support the use of modest hypothermia in specific conditions. Continue Reading »
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