http://practicalneurology.com/2009/04/PN0309_08.php/

CELL TRANSPLANTATION IN PD
The story of transplantation in PD began in April 1987, when Madrazo, et al. published a breathtaking report that two patients with advanced PD had responded dramatically to implantation of autologous adrenal medullary tissue to the non-dominant caudate nucleus.1 Surprisingly, the benefit was bilateral despite the unilateral procedure. Later that year, Lindvall, et al. reported somewhat disappointing results following transplantation of adrenal medullary tissue into the putamen in two PD patients.2 The Madrazo report unleashed a veritable frenzy, as many centers across the world began performing this procedure, using variable methods of patient selection, tissue dissection, preparation, and implantation and post-operative assessment.3-12 No prospective studies employed a sham surgery control, and it only gradually became apparent that clinical effects were less robust and long-lived than initially reported13 and side effects were significant, especially in older subjects.3 Clinical, imaging, and pathological studies showed poor survival and integration of adrenal medullary grafts, and the procedure was abandoned.14-18 One positive outcome of this failed line of research was the development of a systematic evaluation tool for PD surgeries, the Core Assessment Protocol for Intrastriatal Transplantation (CAPIT) in PD.19