Originally Posted by lurkingforacure

First, thank you Olsen for that awesome link to Insightec's youtube video. If you go to their site and root around, you come up with this paper linked up, go to page 23, specifically for the discussion of PTT:

http://www.insightec.com/contentMana...0-%20Neuro.pdf

I followed up a bit and found this, check out those improvement scores, why have we not heard of this before?

"...At a follow-up of 14 ± 6 months and in on-medication condition, a significant (P < 0.001) postoperative improvement of the motor part of the UPDRS (64.6%) and of the activities of daily living (ADL; 75.8%) was observed. Rest tremor, on-chorea and rigidity were reduced by 77.9, 92.2 and 82.3%, respectively. Distal and axial hypobradykinesias showed an improvement of 72.9 and 64%, respectively. Gait and postural stability also improved (57.5 and 66%, respectively) but at a lower level of significance (P < 0.005). Voice was not statistically influenced. L-dopa intake was decreased by 52.2% (P < 0.001) and 33% of the patients could be freed from treatment. In conclusion, PTT is an effective treatment for chronic therapy-resistant Parkinson's disease, improving symptoms in both on- and off-conditions."

from: http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ine&aid=398803

Average duration of these patients was 11+ years, also good news.

These articles are quite recent, October and December of 2012, and sound very promising. There are more articles out there about this if you google it, and with this technology, there is no drilling into the skull, can you imagine?

Granted, it's scary to think about slicing a nerve, which is what I understand tractotomy to be, but look at the trade-off, and compared to other options out there right now, or rather, lack of options, it is very appealing.

Does anyone know anything about this? They are currently using it, FDA approved, for uterine fibroids in the US and it has received EC in the EU.

GE Healthcare owns part of Insightec, fyi.