A very common injury type is traumatic injury, which is the application of external physical force to the human body. Some tissues have the ability to repair themselves after such an injury, e.g. bones and muscles. Other tissues have relatively limited ability to repair themselves after such an injury, e.g. nerves and teeth. In today’s discussion, we will focus on spinal cord injuries, mostly traumatic, which have eluded clinically meaningful interventions for centuries.
According to the site, SpinalCord.com (whose figures correlate well with other sources), in the United States each year approximately 18,000 patients suffer a spinal cord injury leading to paraplegia or quadriplegia. According to the Christopher and Dana Reeve foundation (in 2014), the first year after diagnosis of quadriplegia treatment costs just under $1,000,000 per patient. The first year of paraplegic treatment costs (again, from 2014) approximately $400,000 per patient. In 2026 dollars, the rate has increased approximately 40%. Ongoing quadriplegic yearly cost for treatment was in the 6 figures and paraplegic cost was only somewhat better. Of note, motor vehicle accidents involving motorcycles are often 10+ times more likely to cause a spinal cord injury than those involving an automobile.
Editor’s note: To reduce one’s risk of spinal cord injury, wear lap-shoulder belts at all times while in an automobile, avoid motorcycle use, and take extreme care when working at a height.
Of note, spinal cord injuries from trauma unfortunately lead to quadriplegia more often than paraplegia regardless of vehicle. This is somewhat counterintuitive because the more severe injury happens more commonly.
So, noting that the number of new traumatic spinal cord injuries is approximately 18,000 per year and estimating the cost of lifetime care in 2026 dollars at $3,000,000, the United States spends around $54,000,000,000 per year for spinal cord injury patients. This is a massive amount of money and does not account for loss of income, unreimbursed care by relatives and friends, and substantial indirect costs.
However, there seems to be an early glimmer of hope. In a very promising experiment on human spinal tissue (published by Northwestern University, “Lab Grown Human Spinal Cord Heals After Injury in Major Breakthrough.” ScienceDaily, 16 February 2026. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260216044003.htm>) showed that that an unusual class of therapeutics named “dancing molecules” stimulates even damaged tissue to repair itself and seems, when given early enough, to prevent some of the damage from occurring in the first place. These hyperkinetic molecules have already been used on mice spinal cords which had been damaged rendering them non-ambulatory. Within 4 weeks of treatment, the mice recovered the ability to walk once again. Clinical trials in humans may be permitted by the FDA in the not-too-distant future. Early results on isolated human nervous tissue seems to generate similar results. If Christopher Reeve were around, it is conceivable that before the end of this decade, he might have been able to walk.
It did not escape the experimenter’s awareness that other nervous tissue disease might be candidates for treatment, e.g. central nervous system (brain) diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cerebral infarcts, and the like. If this intervention proves to be useful, we will truly live in a golden age of neurologic therapeutics.
OMRUM, the Optimal Medical Resource Utilization Magazine, enjoys reporting about remedying costly, life altering diseases which plausibly can be treated in the future. This month’s article deals with 1 of modern medicine’s most heartbreaking and expensive diseases, traumatic injury to the spinal cord. The burden of care costs the United States approximately $54 billion each year. If the above noted treatment for this were priced moderately (assuming success), tens of billions of dollars per year would be saved for our medical system and many thousands of patients could continue to work and enjoy a high quality of life, in spite of the initial injury. Extrapolating from peripheral nervous system injuries to the central nervous system injuries, especially cerebral infarcts, one could imagine hundreds of billions of dollars being saved in those who have suffered “strokes”. In the next few years, we will likely see this optimal resource utilization materialize for all who need it. Additionally, since it would save society massive amounts of money, all patients in needed this treatment should receive it. Win-Win.