The Effects Of Epidural Mild Hypothermia On Acute Spinal Cord Injury In Rabbits By Regional Skin Cooling

Background: The acute spinal cord injury is one kind of serious illness, and the therapeutic effect is not good. Hypothermia therapy was reported by Albin first in 1961, and then many scholars did experiments on it. A lot of experimental studies confirm that hypothermia is effective to protect acute spinal cord injury. The traditional hypothermia methods include the system hypothermia and the regional hypothermia. The system hypothermia has serious complications, therefore the clinical practices are not so many. The regional hypothermia methods are mostly epidural cryogenic liquid filling and the heat interchanger direct cooling. It needs emergency operation and special equipments, also the operation is complex. So it is seldom applied in practice.Objectives: To establish an acute spinal cord injury animal model which does not destroy the spinal column structure; to analyze the influences which are concerned with cooling efficiency and the relations among them; to observe the change of spinal cord temperature and physiological parameters when regional skin cooling; to determine weather epidural mild hypothermia by regional skin cooling protects acute spinal cord injury in rabbits; to know the influences of hypothermia on the energy metabolism, the lipin peroxidation and the nerve cell apoptosis in injuried spinal cord.Method: We establish the animal model which keeps the vertebral plate base on the Allen's model. Semiconductor refrigeration meter realizes the epidural mild hypothermia by regional skin cooling. Physiological recording instrument records physiological parameters (e.g. heart rate and blood pressure). Thermodetector records animal spinal cord temperature, rectal temperature and body surface temperature. HE staining, Myeline sheath staining and Bodian staining were used to examine the spinal cord pathology damage. We examine GFAP (glial fibrillary acidic protein),neurofilament protein, MBP,bcl-2 and bax by ABC staining. Tarlov Grades and MEP were used to examine movement function.With TUNEL in situ we examine...