New Parkinson's Treatment

According to the results of a study announced this week, there is new development in the treatment of Parkinson's using gene therapy. Dr. Michael Kaplitt of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Matthew During, a senior research associate at Weill Cornell, authored the study published this week in The Lancet.

Neuroscientists have identified the cause of Parkinson's as a loss of nerve cells in the midbrain, producing erratic movement control such as tremors, stiffness, speech loss and difficulty with motor function. Typically, the most effective treatment "involves implanting a brain 'pacemaker' to electrically stimulate" affected parts of the brain.

"There are wires and a huge battery pack in the chest. It's a bit Frankensteinian, and patients hate it," During said. "There's about a 30 to 40 percent adverse event rate. Although it works, it comes at a significant cost."

On the other hand, gene therapy requires no wires or batteries stuck in the body and possibly causing infection. Instead, doses of a gene, glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), are injected into the brain and, through a viral process, transferred to the targeted cells. In the study, researchers found that motor skills improved from 25 to 65 percent with no incidents of infection, immune response or toxicity. A larger study is being planned.

Interestingly, washingtonpost.com reports that there are 1.5 million Americans suffering from Parkinson's while sciam.com reports only 500,000 Americans are afflicted. That's quite a difference. Gee, I wonder why. Since Parkinson's disease is at the forefront of the political debate surrounding the use of tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research, you'd think there would be more agreement on the actual number of people with the disease.