2023-07-03 15:26:01
When the spinal cord is severed, the brain stops communicating with the rest of the body and the injured become paralyzed. Because it no longer reaches the autonomic nervous system in the spinal cord, paraplegic patients only have a weak immune system.
The consequences can be severe infections, such as blood poisoning or pneumonia, from which the injured can even die. Early identification and treatment of those at high risk can be critical to survival.
The higher the injury, the greater the impairment
In fact, the severity of the immune deficiency depends on the severity of the injury, as a team from the Charité has now discovered. It examined the blood of more than 100 acutely injured people and discovered specific changes that might be helpful for the diagnosis. The higher the injury is along the spine, the greater the risk, write the researchers in the journal Brain: Patients with severe, neurologically complete spinal cord injuries above the thoracic spine are therefore most at risk.
This might also be seen in the blood. This is where the white blood cells, which are part of the immune system, circulate. In one type of these cells, those affected had less of a molecule called ‘mHLA-DR’, leading to their inactivation. This is a problem, however, because these cells later develop into the scavenger cells that hunt down and eat up pathogens such as bacteria.
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The susceptibility to severe infections can now be predicted using the molecule. However, further studies must show whether treatment of the immune deficiency actually leads to a better chance of survival in particularly vulnerable patients.
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