Pittsburgh, November 24, 2014 -- InVivio Therapeutics announced that UPMC Presbyterian will serve as a clinical site in the company’s ongoing IDE pilot study of its Neuro-Spinal Scaffold in patients with acute spinal cord injury (SCI). David Okonkwo, MD, PhD, director of neurotrauma at UPMC Presbyterian and associate professor of neurological surgery and clinical director of the Brain Trauma Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh is the study’s principal investigator here.
According to InVivio, "the biodegradable Neuro-Spinal Scaffold is surgically implanted at the epicenter of the wound after an acute spinal cord injury and acts by appositional healing to spare spinal cord tissue, decrease post-traumatic cyst formation, and decrease spinal cord tissue pressure in preclinical models of spinal cord contusion injury."
“We have been searching for decades for an option for patients with these challenging injuries,” Dr. Okonkwo said. “The InVivo study is a unique, never-before tried intervention for spinal cord injury. I’m excited to see if it will prove to be a new way of treating thoracic spinal cord injuries.”
The primary purpose of the study is to evaluate whether the Scaffold is safe and feasible for the treatment of complete functional spinal cord injury as determined by no degradation in paralysis level or sensory motor neurological function beyond that typically seen.
For more information on the study, please visit the study’s webpage on ClinicalTrials.gov.