Parkinson�s Disease � Surgical Treatment

Future Promise

There are other surgery-based procedures for the treatment of PD that are at the experimental stages

► Fetal Cell Transplant Therapy

Transplant of fetal Substantia nigra cells has been performed in several hundred PD patients to date in multiple centers throughout the world. While results have been encouraging in some individual patients, two recent double-blind placebo-controlled studies showed that consistent benefit was only seen in young PD patients (age 60 or below), and side effects in some patients were significant. In particular, some patients developed off-medication dyskinesias (uncontrolled movements) even without any levodopa or other dopaminergic medication. The lack of consistent good results and the significant side effects encountered have been interpreted by the scientific and medical community as an indication that further research in animal models of PD is needed before studies in more patients are undertaken.