Chondroitinase ABC Administration in Locomotion Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Objective: The present systematic review and meta-analysis intends to conduct a comprehensive and complete search in electronic resources to investigate the role of administrating ChABC in improving complications following SCI. Methods: Medline, Embase, Scopus and Web of sciences were searched until the end of 2019. Two independent reviewers assessed the studies conducted on rats and mice and summarized the data. Using STATA 14.0 program, the findings were reported as pooled standardized mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: 34 pre-clinical studies were included. ChABC administration generally improves locomotion recovery after SCI (SMD = 0.90; 95% CI: 0.61 to 1.20; p <0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that differences in SCI model (p = 0.732), severity of injury (p = 0.821), number of ChABC administration (p = 0.092), blinding status (p = 0.294), use of different locomotor score (p = 0.567) and follow up duration (p = 0.750) have no effect on the efficacy of ChABC treatment. Conclusion: The findings of the present study showed that prescribing ChABC has a moderate effect in the improvement of locomotion after SCI in mice and rats. However, this moderate effect introduces ChABC as an adjuvant therapy and not as a primary therapy.