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OBJECTIVE: To investigate the status of olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) transplantation in facilitating the regeneration of spinal cord injury.DATA SOURCES: Articles about OECs transplantation in treating spinal cord injury were searched in Pubmed database published in English from January 1981 to December 2005 by using the keywords of "olfactory ensheathing cells, transplantation, spinal cord injury".STUDY SELECTION: The data were checked primarily, literatures related to OECs transplantation and the regeneration of spinal cord injury were selected, whereas the repetitive studies and reviews were excluded.DATA EXTRACTION: Totally 43 articles about OECs transplantation and the regeneration and repair of spinal cord injury were collected, and the repetitive ones were excluded.DATA SYNTHESIS: There were 35 articles accorded with the criteria. OECs are the olfactory ensheathing glias isolated from olfactory bulb and olfactory nerve tissue. OECs have the characters of both Schwann cells in central nervous system and peripheral astrocytes. The transplanted OECs can migrate in the damaged spinal cord of host, can induce and support the regeneration, growth and extension of damaged neuritis.Besides, transgenic technique can enable it to carry some exogenous genes that promote neuronal regeneration, and express some molecules that can facilitate neural regeneration, so as to ameliorate the internal environment of nerve injury, induce the regeneration of damaged spinal cord neurons, which can stimulate the regeneration potential of the damaged spinal cord to reach the purpose of spinal cord regeneration and functional recovery.CONCLUSION: OECs are the glial cells with the energy for growth at mature phase, they can myelinize axons, secrete various biological nutrition factors, and then protect and support neurons, also facilitate neural regeneration. OECs have been successfully isolated from nasal olfactory mucosa and olfactory nerve.Therefore, autologous transplantation of OECs and objective genes modified OECs carrying various neurotrophic factors may become an effective method to treat spinal cord injury in the future.