Surgical treatment for Parkinson's disease

In the past years there has been an increasing interest in the surgical therapies for Parkinson's disease.

This renewed interest is related to differents factors. First, pharmacological treatments are still unable to alter substantially the progression of the disease and after a few years they generally cause motor complications and dyskinesias. Secondly, the great advances in the surgical techniques, especially with the improvement of stereotactic surgery, have decreased morbidity in recent years. Finally, the introduction of deep brain stimulation, now allows surgical treatment without damaging brain structures. In this review, different surgical treatments are summarized.

Ablative surgery, deep brain stimulation and reinervation therapies are described.

CITATION  Neurocirugia (Astur). 2004 Feb;15(1):5-16