[Dysport in the treatment of essential tremor]

Head tremor develops in one-third of patients with essential tremor. It is resistant to peroral antitremor medications. The efficacy of dysport, a botulinum toxin type A preparation, injected in the neck muscles, was examined in 12 patients with head tremor. After the injection of 500 U of the drug (150 U in each splenius muscle of the head and 100 U in each sternal-clavicular-mammiform muscle), the intensity of head tremor assessed by the rating tremor scale was decreased by more than 50%. The clinically significant effect was registrated in more than 2/3 of patients. Five patients who received repeated injections of dysport 2 times a year were followed-up for 3 years that allowed to find a trend towards the slow cumulative effect. The use of botulinum toxin type A preparations is recommended as a method of choice in patients with essential tremor and significant head tremor interfering with life activities.