Effet de l'administration continue de nimodipine à la phase aiguë d'un traumatisme médullaire chez le babouin

This study was carried out to assess the putative improvement of spinal cord blood flow obtained with a calcium channel blocker after acute spinal cord injury in ten baboons. The injury was generated by compressing the cord at L1 level for 5 seconds with a balloon catheter inflated to 2 bars with Ringer's solution. Subsequently, five monkeys received a saline infusion, and five others a nimodipine infusion (0.04 mg.kg-1 x h-1), for seven days. Spinal cord blood flow (SCBF) was measured using a scanographic technique with stable xenon. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a histological study of the spine were carried out a different times of the study. SCBF and SEP were recorded before injury. Thereafter SCBF was measured every thirty minutes during the four hours following the injury, as well as on day 7. SEP and MRI were recorded on days 1 and 7. The histological study was carried out on the eighth day. Three spinal cord and vertebral segments were collected, fixed, sliced and stained. SCBF before injury was not significantly different in either group (39.8 +/- 15.9 ml x 100 g-1 x min-1 for the treatment group 40.9 +/- 16.3 ml x 100 g-1 x min-1 for the control group). During the injury, there were major variations between animals. The results were expressed as percentages of each animal's control SCBF (before injury). Immediately after injury, SCBF increased in both groups. However, in the control group, SCBF decreased more than in the treatment group on the seventh day after injury (80 to 90% vs 25 to 50%, respectively).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)