Erythropoietin preconditioning improves clinical and histologic outcome in an acute spinal cord ischemia and reperfusion rabbit model

Cross-clamping of the thoracic aorta exemplifies ischemia/reperfusion injury in daily vascular surgery potentially resulting in spinal cord dysfunction. In recent years, many surgical and pharmacologic approaches have been tested to overcome ischemic paraplegia or at least to reduce appearance of spinal cord dysfunction after aortic cross-clamping. So far, there is no commonly accepted procedure to avoid this negative adverse effect of thoracic aortic repair. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a treatment with recombinant human erythropoietin and its derivative, carbamylated erythropoietin fusion protein, in an animal model of spinal cord ischemia/reperfusion injury.