Effects of Local Transplantation of Autologous Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Combination with Low Level Laser Therapy in Repair of Experimental Acute Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Objective- The aim of this study was to demonstrate the efficacy of MSCs transplantation in combination with low level laser irradiation (LLLI) in repair of experimental acute spinal cord injury. Design- Experimental study. Animals- 28 adult male Wistar Rats. Procedures- A ballon- compression technique was used to produce an injury at the T8-T9 level of spinal cord applying Fogarty embolectomy catheter. In group-1, the autologous MSCs were transplanted to the spinal cord lesion and followed by treatment with low level laser irradiation during 15 consecutive days in group-2. The injured rats in third group were treated by LLLI alone. The functional recovery was assessed using the Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) locomotion scoring within 5 weeks. Results-In these three treatment groups, the scores were significantly higher than control group. The differences between group-2 and two other treatment groups were statistically significant during all five weeks after treatment. There were no significant differences in BBB score between group-1(MSCs) and group-3(LLLI) at 3rd, 4th and 5th weeks of treatment. According to the histopathological findings, the best response was observed in group-2 (MSCs+LLLI) that repair of injured parts of dorsal funiculi and less cavitation were occurred by proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells and their differentiation to glial cells especially oligodendrocytes resulting in axon regeneration and relatively spinal cord recovery. Conclusion and Clinical Relevance- The findings of present study demonstrated that concurrent use of LLLI and local transplantation of MSCs exhibited profound effects on axon regeneration and revealed remarkable functional improvement. These results suggested that MSCs characteristics could be influenced by low level laser irradiation, so this treatment might be as a useful procedure for neural regeneration, although further detailed investigations need to be carried out particularly in clinical cases.