Autologous bone marrow derived stem cell therapy in traumatic spinal cord injury: A case report and review of literature

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition. It not only creates enormous physical and emotional cost to the victims but also causes a financial burden to the society at large. The treatment of SCI focuses on preventing further injury and enabling people to return to an active and productive life within limits of their disability. Recently there is great excitement about the possibility of generating neural progenitor cells from sources such as mesenchymal cells derived from skin, bone-marrow, or adipose tissue. Stem cell therapy in traumatic spinal cord injury is an on going area of research in many centres in India and abroad. We describe a case of traumatic spinal cord injury with complete paraplegia in an adult where we had infused autologous bone marrow derived stem cell to damaged cord during fixation procedure and review the literature.