Leveraging genetics to optimize rehabilitation outcomes after spinal cord injury: contemporary challenges and future opportunities

Genetic analysis has revolutionized medicine, leading to targeted treatments and better patient outcomes. Rehabilitation medicine is now exploring genetics for personalized treatments. In spinal cord injury (SCI) medicine, a pivotal study that changes clinical care is lacking. The challenges in SCI medicine include heterogeneity and small sample sizes. Pooling resources and collaboration among clinical and research sites is a necessary effort. Collaborative efforts must expand to the meaningful collection, storage, and distribution of biosamples.

• 1
  Lack of significant progress in clinical SCI genetics studies is due to inadequate genetic data and lack of uniform endpoints.
• 2
  Challenges in SCI research include heterogeneity, small sample sizes, non-standardized outcome recordings, and confounding secondary medical complications.
• 3
  Pooling resources, deep collaborations, and biobanking efforts are potential solutions to advance genetics studies in SCI medicine.