Treatment of acute spinal cord injury with methylprednisolone: results of a multicenter, randomized clinical trial.

Although some evidence of neurological improvement with naloxone exists in this trial, the improvement was never significantly better than that seen for placebo. Methylprednisolone (MP) was effective in reducing some of the permanent paralysis after acute spinal cord injury at the doses studied, but only when treatment began within 8 h after injury. There is currently no support for the administration of higher or lower doses of the drug and an apparent contraindication to initiating administration of MP at any dose more than 8 h after injury.