As we wrap up this year’s Leak Week, today is all about looking ahead—to what we plan to do, what we hope to do, and what we need to do to advance understanding of spinal CSF leak and improve outcomes for everyone affected by it.
As you can see in the first image, research on spontaneous intracranial hypotension due to spinal CSF leak has steadily increased, especially in the last 10 years, going from around 150 papers published per year in 2011 to over 223 in 2022.
This seems pretty impressive—until you compare it to the amount of research being published in other disease areas like multiple sclerosis, with over 7,000 papers published in 2022.
The kind of research being done also matters: Thus far, there have been no higher-level evidence studies (such as randomized control trials) for SIH.
Accelerating the amount and kinds of research is incredibly important and our goal is to support more of it, with your help, as we develop a patient registry and collaborative research network.