Research Progress of Flavonoids in Spinal Cord Injury: Therapeutic Mechanisms and Drug Delivery Strategies

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious neurological disease with an extremely high disability rate. Most patients show a loss of motor and sensory functions below the level of injury. Current treatment protocols are based on early surgical decompression and pharmacotherapy. However, the efficacy of these interventions is suboptimal. Due to its complex pathophysiological mechanisms and the difficulty of central nervous system (CNS) regeneration, exploring effective therapeutic interventions remains daunting. Flavonoids are secondary metabolites unique to plants that have attracted attention in recent years for their potential efficacy and are now commonly used in the treatment of inflammation, tumors, and other diseases. For SCI, related studies are still exploring; some compounds, such as quercetin, fisetin, and hesperetin, have shown good anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties, which help to restore the function of the injured spinal cord. However, flavonoids exhibit certain disadvantages, including poor solubility, low bioavailability, and the inability to achieve long-term controlled release. Some studies have proposed potential drug delivery strategies-including nanoparticles, hydrogels, and collagen scaffolds-to enhance efficacy. In this paper, we summarize the therapeutic mechanisms and drug delivery strategies of flavonoids in SCI by searching the relevant literature in recent years and propose future research directions to provide new ideas for the multimodal treatment of SCI.