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Spinal Cord Injury and the Possibilities of Treatment with Calcium Antagonists

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Nimodipine

Abstract

Calcium is ubiquitous in the body, and not surprisingly it is implicated in many disease processes. Calcium channel antagonists have proved useful in a number of clinical settings, including hypertension, angina pectoris. cardiac arrhythmias, and cerebral vasospasm complicating subarachnoid hemorrhage [25]. The calcium channel antagonist nimodipine, a substituted 1,4-dihydropyridine, has very high lipid solubility and penetrates well into the central nervous system [21]. Thus, nimodipine has been tested for the treatment of a number of central nervous system disorders and recently has been found effective in reducing the incidence of neurological deficits after subarachnoid hemorrhage [27, 28], although its mechanism of action in this disorder remains unknown. Calcium channel antagonists have also been studied in experimental models of spinal cord injury (SCI). This paper examines the evidence for calcium-mediated damage in SCI, the presumed mechanisms, and the therapeutic possibilities provided by calcium antagonists, including nimodipine, in the treatment of SCI.

This work was supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Paraplegic Association, Ontario Branch, and Miles Laboratories, Inc.

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Authors
  1. C. H. Tator
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  2. I. B. Ross
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  3. M. G. Fehlings
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pharmaceutical Division, Miles Inc, 400 Morgan Lane, 06516, West Haven, CT, USA

    Alexander Scriabine M.D.

  2. Department of Neursourgery, University of Glasgow, G51 4TF, Glasgow, Scotland

    G. M. Teasdale

  3. Institute of Neurological Sciences, The Southern General Hospital, G51 4TF, Glasgow, Scotland

    G. M. Teasdale

  4. Fachbereich Medizin und Entwicklung, Bayer AG, Pharma Forschungszentrum, D-5600, Wuppertal 1, Germany

    Dieter Tettenborn

  5. Department of Neurosurgery, New York University, Medical Center, 550 First Avenue, 10016, New York, N.Y., USA

    Wise Young Ph.D., M.D.

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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Tator, C.H., Ross, I.B., Fehlings, M.G. (1991). Spinal Cord Injury and the Possibilities of Treatment with Calcium Antagonists. In: Scriabine, A., Teasdale, G.M., Tettenborn, D., Young, W. (eds) Nimodipine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48695-1_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48695-1_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-53405-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-48695-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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