A minimally-invasive procedure at the University of Maryland Medical Center uses focused ultrasound to relieve symptoms of the disease and the side-effects of the medicine used to treat it.
Angela Roberts | The Baltimore SunSince they couldn’t find a suit in the first store, they stopped by a second. Then, Carlson drove them to a third store, acutely aware, the whole time, that this mundane afternoon would have been nearly impossible for her to experience less than a year earlier.Carlson, a 41-year-old who lives in Northeast Washington, D.C.
The procedure, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 to treat advanced Parkinson’s on one side of the brain, was recently tested in a clinical trial led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Two-thirds of the patients who responded to the treatment continued to benefit from it a year later, according to the study. Participants will continue to be followed by researchers for five years to determine how long the treatment’s benefits last, and how it affects the progression of their disease.
During the focused ultrasound procedure, patients remain fully alert as they lie in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Doctors then direct ultrasonic energy through a targeted pinpoint in the skull to the globus pallidus, a structure deep inside the brain that helps control voluntary movement. It’s a “Back to the Future”-type approach, Eisenberg said, that takes a similar strategy used decades ago to treat Parkinson’s, and makes it much safer and less invasive.
Since most of Carlson’s symptoms were on the right side of her body, the left half of her brain was treated with the procedure. She noticed a difference immediately after the treatment.But Carlson, who didn’t participate in the recent clinical trial, had to pay for the procedure out-of-pocket, since it’s not yet covered by insurance.
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