Man Previously Paralyzed Walks After Nose Cells Fix Spinal Cord

With the help of a frame, the surgery enabled a bridge to be formed over the injury so that nerve cells (which were helped by special nose cells) would reform along the scar tissue. Darek Fidyka was paralyzed from the chest down after a stabbing that occurred in 2010. He spent 19 months in a Polish hospital receiving treatments that have enabled him to regain limited voluntary movement and some sensation in the legs.

This man has improved beyond anyone’s expectations, and is even driving and living on his own. Over 3 million people live with a severe spinal condition globally, and this medical development may bring them hope. Some believe the success of the surgery may be attributed to the fact that the injury sustained was a clean cut, and that such methods may not be available to patients with more complex spinal traumas. However, this development comes after years of work from Geoffrey Raisman, who is a professor of the Institute of Neurology at University College London.

Raisman discovered that traumatized nerve cells can create new links in 1969, and in 1985, he found that olfactory ensheathing cells (a specific type of nose cell) enables nerve fibers to be connected into the brain again. After the spinal cord is damaged, scar tissue forms and prevents nerve fibers from regrowing. Raisman theorized that this would be reversed if a bridge could form along the scar tissue. Since OECs were the only cells known to regrow, he focused on using those to create such a bridge.

In one of two surgeries, doctors took one of Mr. Fidyka’s olfactory bulbs from high up in the nose and grew OECs in a culture. After two weeks, they used 100 micro-injections on both sides of the injury site to place the OECs into the spinal cord using a series of nerves from the ankle to cover the gap. This allowed the cells to push spinal nerve fibers to regrow along the bridge which was created by ankle nerve grafts. Although he now receives five hours of rehabilitation per day, Mr. Fidyka’s recovery is nothing short of a medical miracle. Quoted from a BBC program, he states “I knew it would be difficult, and it would last long-but I always shut out the thought that I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, so I was always set to fight hard.”

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Author

Gary Starkman Dr. Starkman, a top Neurologist in NYC, is the Medical Director and founder of New York Neurology Associates. He is Board Certified in Neurology with a subspecialty certification in Pain Medicine.