University of Maryland Medicine offers MRI-guided focused ultrasound treatment to Parkinson's patients

http://www.news-medical.net/news/201...-patients.aspx

http://www.fusfoundation.org/

I sure wish they had included something about whether the patient improved or not-this is something, given the nature of the procedure, that I think would show benefits pretty quickly if it were going to be beneficial.

Other PWP have received this same treatment around the world, but how are they doing?

http://www.nbcwashington.com/video/#...ason/324002491

Looks like this may be the first women who's had it done. I almost started to cry when she was running!

thanks for that link. pretty amazing results in that one patient. lots of questions of course but also happy to hear ET patients have had positive outcome last for a year. i assume this replaces pallidotomy, thalamotomy, old surgical procedures and an alternative to DBS.

I assume a lot cheaper than DBS for obvious reasons.

I have seen examples where Dr. Lozano has used focused ultrasound beams to treat patients with severe Essential Tremor. The results are amazing and immediate.

Here is a link to a youtube video showing a patient with Essential Tremor before and after this type of surgery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdF_3eqp1pk

It is more like pallidotomy than DBS.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/video/#...ults/324011971

Using ultrasound to destroy a small portion of brain tissue seems to help PD patients in the short term. I'm not sure if this continues to help long term though.

Treatment Site Commercial Treatment Clinical Trial Location Country
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre ✓ Toronto, ON Canada
Rambam Medical Center ✓ Haifa Israel
ResoFus - Centre Medic Alomar ✓ Barcelona Spain
Center for Ultrasound Functional Neurosurgery ✓ Solothurn Switzerland
FUS-Center, University of Zurich, Children's Hospital ✓ Zurich Switzerland
Swedish Neurosciences Institute ✓ Seattle, WA United States
University of Maryland School of Medicine ✓ Baltimore, MD United States
University of Virginia (UVA) Health System ✓ Charlottesville, VA United States