The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Original Article

Acute Effect of Methylprednisolone in Experimental Spinal Cord Injury

Kyu Man Shin
Corresponding author: Kyu Man Shin. Department of Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1983. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

It is purpose of this study to determine the benificial effect of treatment with methylprednisolone on the enhancement of Na+·K+-ATPase activity and the increased ATP level during the 4 hours after a 400gm-cm injury to the spinal cord of cat. These results demonstrate that high dose(30mg/kg) of methylprednisolone can benificially enhance the activity of neuronal Na+·K+-ATPase during the first 4 hour after spinal cord injury. But the enharrcement of this enzyme activity is not significantly increased with mega dose(60mg/kg) of methylprednisolone. Tissue level of ATP in the high dose-treated cat at 1 hour after trauma was significantly elevated, but those in high dose-treated cat at 4 hour and the 1 and 4 hours with mega dose-treated groups were not significantly increased. The protective effects of methylprednisolone in experimental spinal cord trauma are the enhancement of Na+·K+-ATPase, inhibition of the free-radical reaction and the lipid peroxidation, the increment of neuronal activity and ATP utilization. High dose(30mg/kg) of methylprednisolone is required in order to produce the acute effect in the early phase experimental spinal cord injury.