UF Spinal Cord Patient Stable Following Landmark Surgery

July 14, 1997

GAINESVILLE—A 43-year-old Florida man was in serious but stable condition Monday, three days after historic surgery in which he became the first American with a spinal cord injury to receive a transplant of embryonic nerve tissue.

Such tissue has been used in the past to try to improve the condition of patients with Parkinson’s disease and other disorders. But last week’s operation, performed Friday by a neurosurgeon at Shands at the University of Florida, marked a novel effort in the complicated battle to help the thousands of people left paralyzed by spinal cord injury.

The Florida patient, whose name is being withheld at his request, is the first of 10 paralyzed volunteers who will undergo the procedure as part of a four-year pilot study at UF. The experimental treatment involves injecting small bits of human embryonic spinal cord cells directly into an expanding cavity that sometimes forms at the site of a spinal cord injury. Such cavities, referred to as syringomyelia, frequently expand, causing progressive loss of feeling and mobility.

Researchers are testing embryonic tissue because of its exceptional ability to grow and fill lesion cavities, and to develop into all of the cell types that form the adult spinal cord.

The graft consisted of embryonic spinal nerve tissue, which was acquired in accordance with all federal and state guidelines.

Neurosurgeons performed the procedure to test the safety and feasibility of embryonic spinal cord grafts, which in landmark laboratory studies have been shown to help injured cats regain some use of their paralyzed limbs. In this pilot study, the goal is to prevent further spinal damage rather than to reverse paralysis.

UF neuroscientist Paul Reier cautioned that this procedure is not a “magic bullet” that will make someone rise out of the wheelchair and walk. “It will take a combination of approaches,” he said.

UF neurosurgeon Richard Fessler, who performed the transplant, estimated it will take at least six months–and possibly as long as a year–before scientists can determine whether the tissue graft is surviving and successfully plugging the wound cavity in the effort to prevent deterioration of the patient’s functioning.

The surgery lasted 12 hours, with most of the operating time devoted to draining the cavity and removing extensive scar tissue. Specific details about the patient’s condition were not released Monday, but a hospital spokeswoman said he was doing as well as surgeons expected.