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MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound Thalamotomy for Patients with Medically-refractory Essential Tremor
Published on: December 13, 2017
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Focused Ultrasound Thalamotomy for Refractory Essential Tremor: A Japanese Multicenter Single-Arm Study
Keiichi Abe1, Shiro Horisawa1, Toshio Yamaguchi2
1Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.
Neurosurgery
|January 20, 2021
Summary
Unilateral focused ultrasound (FUS) thalamotomy effectively reduced essential tremor symptoms and improved quality of life in Japanese patients. This treatment demonstrated a strong safety profile with no severe adverse events observed during the 12-month follow-up.
Area of Science:
- Neurosurgery
- Medical Imaging
- Neurology
Background:
- Transcranial magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (FUS) lesioning of the ventral intermediate thalamic nucleus shows promise for essential tremor.
- Previous studies confirm the safety and efficacy of unilateral FUS thalamotomy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the safety and efficacy of FUS thalamotomy in a Japanese patient cohort.
- To conduct a prospective, multicenter, single-arm confirmatory trial for FUS thalamotomy in essential tremor.
Main Methods:
- 35 patients with essential tremor underwent unilateral FUS thalamotomy.
- Follow-up extended to 12 months post-treatment.
- Safety assessed via adverse events; efficacy measured by tremor severity and quality of life scales.
Main Results:
- Significant reduction in tremor severity (56.4%) maintained for 12 months.
- Quality of life improved by 46.3%.
- No severe adverse events; gait disturbance was the most common, transient adverse event.
Conclusions:
- Unilateral FUS thalamotomy provides significant, sustained tremor relief and enhances quality of life.
- The treatment exhibits an excellent safety profile, comparable to previous studies.
- Effectiveness was not impacted by the inclusion of patients with a low skull density ratio (SDR).
