Journal of Trauma & Treatment

Influence of the Level, Severity and Phase of Spinal Cord Injury on Hematological and Biochemical Parameters

Abstract

Antonio Ibarra, Alejandro Ríos-Hoyo, Paola Suarez-Meade, Emanuel Malagon and Andrea Colin-Rodríguez

Spinal cord (SC) injury is a neurological emergency that results in complications increasing in number and severity according to the level of the injury. Systemic response after SC injury may alter hematological and biochemical parameters. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of the lesion depending on its level and severity in order to provide a prognosis during its acute (24 hours post injury) and subacute (15 days post injury) phases. We hypothesized that hematologic and biochemical parameters will depend directly on the site, severity and phase of the lesion. Rats were subjected to T1 (high) or T11 (low) severe or moderate SC injury. Rats that were anesthetized but did not receive surgical procedure were used as controls. Blood samples were obtained 24 hours and 15 days post injury for acute and subacute analysis respectively. Results show that in both acute and subacute phases, the level of injury is not related to hematological alterations, in contrast, severity interferes with the normal blood cell count, hematocrit and hemoglobin concentrations. Regarding biochemical values, neither level, nor severity of injury are related to changes. It is worth mentioning that on the subacute phase almost all of the altered variables, that appeared during the acute stage of injury, tend to return to their normal values. The variation on both hematological and biochemical parameters may also be caused by hemorrhage, liver damage and inflammatory responses due to secondary mechanisms inflicted by SC injury. These findings help to understand the pathophysiology observed after injury and provide data that contribute to improve the initial management and the design of future therapies after SC injury.