The Lancet Neurology has published the early findings of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation-funded essential tremor clinical trial at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. The study, which was published online ahead of print, covered four patients treated between May 2012 and January 2013. The MR-guided focused ultrasound treatments, which were designed to impact tremor in one hand, resulted in immediate and sustained tremor improvements. Mean tremor scores decreased by 89.4% at one month and by 81.3% at three months, when the follow-up period concluded. Reported side-effects included post-operative paraesthesias (tingling) in one patient and deep vein thrombosis in another.
The study, which will treat six patients in all, is being led by Michael Schwartz, MD, division head of Neurosurgery at Sunnybrook. READ STUDY SUMMARY
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