InVivo Therapeutics has announced that the patient enrolled in January in the INSPIRE study of the Neuro-spinal scaffold has improved from a complete AIS A to an incomplete AIS B spinal cord injury in the time between the one-month and the two-month evaluations.
This is the seventh out of the 11 patients (63.6%) with at least one month of follow-up to have had an AIS grade improvement. Two additional patients are early in follow-up and have not yet had their one-month visit. The AIS conversion rate observed in the INSPIRE study to date is considerably higher than published rates observed in a range of spinal cord injury natural history databases that are all below 25%.
In addition to the AIS conversion, the patient has also experienced substantial improvements in sensory and motor function. Prior to surgery, the subject had a T12 neurological level of injury with some spared bilateral sensation on the front of the legs and unilateral palpable hip muscle contraction but no ability to move either leg. The patient had no sensory function on the front of the legs from just below the knee and no sensory function on the back of the body from just below the waist. At the two-month visit, the patient was able to move his hips and knees bilaterally and had regained at least some sensory function in almost all regions across the lower legs, feet, and the back of the body from just below the waist.
Travis Dumont, director of the Neurovascular Program and principal investigator at Banner -University Medical Center Tucson, in Tuscon, USA, performed the implantation in January. Dumont says, “It has been rewarding to be a part of the INSPIRE study and to follow this patient’s recovery. This patient had a very low thoracic neurological level of injury, and such patients have the best prognosis. Nonetheless, I have been impressed with this patient’s recovery to date and am hopeful that the positive trajectory will continue.”
