Guest Editorial 9.4 an Innovative Approach to Induce Regeneration and the Repair of Spinal Cord Injury

[Publishers’ note: In this final issue of Volume 9, it gives the Publishers great pleasure and honour to welcome Dr Semion Rochkind, the current WALT President, and his colleagues with their very important and exciting Guest Editorial on the use of laser therapy to enhance the effects of composite allogenic implants on the repair and regeneration of totally transected spinal cords in the rat model. Spinal injuries are increasing, particularly in the field of sports medicine, where the increased participation in fast contact sports such as American football and rugby football naturally leads to a rise in the number of injuries. Both of these sports involve fairly aggressive tackling of fast-moving players, causing extremely rapid deceleration resulting in severe torsion or other stresses to the spinal column of the tackled player. This can very easily lead to spinal injury, particularly in the cervical and lumbar spine. Other fields where spinal avulsion or crush injuries are happening more often include horse riding and racing, and motor sports. Traffic accidents account for yet another patient population, and given the steady increase in the number of cars on the roads of all industrialized and developing nations, a concomitant rise in spinal injuries is to be expected. Conventional treatment for these severe and in many cases totally incapacitating injuries usually concentrate on immobilization, accompanied by physical therapy for the affected limbs and body areas to try and prevent total atrophy. The results are not exceptional. Dr Rochkind, a neurosurgeon, has been an active proponent of low incident levels of laser energy in the repair of damaged neuronal tissues for more than ten years, and his results have conclusively shown that laser therapy assists in the repair of damaged nerve cells in both the peripheral and more recently the central nervous systems. This Editorial must surely provide some real hope for both victims of spinal accidents, and their physicians. Despite its clearly argued conclusion, this Editorial is probably going to add to the controversy which surrounds laser therapy and photobioactivation, but controversy is a vehicle for advancement, always provided the antagonists and sceptics are prepared to accept such studies as Dr Rochkind's earlier works and the present Editorial. Some will continue to ignore them or dismiss them without even trying to read and understand. We hope these so-called ‘dispassionate critics’ will very quickly drag their heads up from the sand, and finally become aware that laser therapy offers tremendous hope for many classes of patient, including those suffering from severely incapacitating spinal injuries.].