The Potential for Cellular Therapy Combined with Growth Factors in Spinal Cord Injury

Table 1

A review of the published studies on growth factors and spinal cord injury.

Reference	Model (animal/injury/level)	Factor	𝑁	Graft	Histological effect	Functional effect
Grill et al., [78]	Rat/dorsal hemisection and dorsal column lesion/T7	NT3	21	Fibroblast	Corticospinal axon growth	Locomotor score improvement
Houweling et al., [66]	Rat/partial transection/T9	BDNF	9	NA	None	Locomotor score improvement within 1 week of injury; none at later f/u
McTigue et al., [67]	Rat/contusion/T8	NT3	6	Fibroblast	Cell growth into graft, remyelination	NA
		BDNF	12	Fibroblast	Cell growth into graft, remyelination	NA
		bFGF	5	Fibroblast	None	NA
		NGF	5	Fibroblast	None	NA
Lee et al., [73]	Rat/contusion/T10	bFGF	5	NA	Reduction in necrosis	NA
		NGF	5	NA	None	NA
Liu et al., [68]	Rat/partial hemisection/C3	BDNF	72	Fibroblast	Rubrospinal axon regeneration	Partial recovery of forelimb function
Rabchevsky et al., [76]	Rat/contusion/T10	bFGF	18	NA	Reduction in necrosis	Partial recovery of motor function at all f/u (up to 6 weeks)
Namiki et al., [69]	Rat/compression/T3	BDNF	6	NA	None	Higher inclined plane score 1 week following injury; none at later f/u
		NGF	6	NA	None	None
		NT3	6	NA	None	None
Rabchevsky et al., [77]	Rat/contusion/T10	bFGF	16	NA	None	Partial recovery of motor function at all f/u (up to 6 weeks)
Tuszynski et al., 2002	Rat/dorsal hemisection /T7	NT3	66	Fibroblast	Corticospinal axon growth	Locomotor score improvement
Blesch and Tuszynski, [4]	Rat/complete transection and dorsal hemisection/T7	GDNF	44	Fibroblast	Cell growth into graft, remyelination	None at 4 weeks (first f/u) and beyond.
Brock et al., [70]	Primate/lateral hemisection/C7	BDNF & NT3	7	Fibroblast	Neural growth into graft, neuroprotection of corticospinal neurons	NA