Introduction: Spinal cord injuries (SCI) lead to permanent irreversible functional deficits.  Poor prognosis of patients is the motivation of searching a treatment for the chronic injury.  Planting stem cells provides us with a promising strategy. In the meanwhile, the use of olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) has shown very good results.  This study aims at evaluating the effect of transplanted OECs on functional recovery of acute SCI in rats.

Materials and methods: In this study, eighteen adult male Wistar rats weighting approximately 210 ± 10 gr were used to study spinal cord injury. They were randomly divided into four groups: Sham (n = 3), Control (n = 6), Vehicle (n=3) and Treatment (n=6). In the Sham Group, only laminectomy was performed in the area of T9 spinal cord. In three groups of Control, vehicle and Treatment, after laminectomy, spinal cord contusion model was performed using the Weight drop technique. Immediately after the injury, 10μl Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) alone or with 10⁶ cells were injected to vehicle and Treatment Group animals. For culturing cells, the olfactory mucosa of 7-day-old male Wistar rats was used. Motor function of animals in all groups, was evaluated in the first 48 hours daily and then weekly for eight weeks.

Results: Comparing the results of the second to eighth week of the study showed significant differences in the group receiving the OECs with the control group (P<0.05).