New Treatment Helps Cure Spinal Injuries

wap writes "Researchers have found that an injection of polyethylene glycol (PEG) into the site of neural injury was very effective in saving neurons in dogs, allowing them to recover their movement after the injury. This is an amazing development. PEG is a simple, safe chemical. Using it as a post-injury treatment could prevent paralysis in thousands of accident victims every year, if hospitals start using it. This doesn't mean we don't need stem cell research, but it is a simple and potentially cheap way to get many of the benefits for spinal injury."

Comments

cool, but not quite...

[moosesocks]

it looks like stem cell research will continue to be a necessary evil.

this treatment is no good for patients who are already injured. it does not repair or rebuild nerve cells. it simply prevents them from being killed after injury.

granted, it is an important step, but we need to develop further treatments for the 25% of cases it doesn't work in. while 75% success is astoundingly good in this field, it isn't enough