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Surgical treatment for Parkinson's disease

Victor S C Fung, John G L Morris and Malcolm F Pell
Med J Aust 2002; 177 (3): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2002.tb04694.x
Published online: 5 August 2002

Surgery shows promise for patients with severe, poorly controlled motor fluctuations

Parkinson's disease afflicts around 78 000 Australians. Mortality is almost twice that of age-matched controls1 and the mean disease duration is only 13 years.2 No treatment has yet been shown to slow disease progression.


  • 1 Department of Neurology, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW.
  • 2 Department of Neurosurgery, St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, NSW.


Correspondence: 

  • 1. Hely MA, Morris JG, Traficante R, et al. The Sydney multicentre study of Parkinson's disease: progression and mortality at 10 years. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1999; 67: 300-307.
  • 2. Hughes AJ, Daniel SE, Blankson S, Lees AJ. A clinicopathologic study of 100 cases of Parkinson's disease. Arch Neurol 1993; 50: 140-148.
  • 3. Iansek R, Rosenfeld JV, Huxham FE. Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in Parkinson's disease. Med J Aust 2002; 177: 142-146. <eMJA full text>
  • 4. The Deep-Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease Study Group. Deep-brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus or the pars interna of the globus pallidus in Parkinson's disease. N Engl J Med 2001; 345: 956-963.
  • 5. Lang AE, Montgomery E, Hutchinson W, Lozano A. Attempting to predict response to pallidotomy [abstract]. Mov Disord 1999; 13 (Suppl 2): 263.
  • 6. Charles D, Krack P, Xie J, et al. Preoperative indicators of clinical outcome following bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation for the treatment of Parkinson's disease [abstract]. Neurology 1999; 52 (Suppl 2): A272.
  • 7. Krack P, Hamel W, Mehdorn HM, Deuschl G. Surgical treatment of Parkinson's disease. Curr Opin Neurol 1999; 12: 417-425.
  • 8. Parkin SG, Gregory R, Scott R, et al. Unilateral and bilateral pallidotomy for idiopathic Parkinsons disease: a case series of 115 patients. Mov Disord 2002. In press.
  • 9. Bronstein JM, DeSalles A, DeLong MR. Stereotactic pallidotomy in the treatment of Parkinson disease: an expert opinion. Arch Neurol 1999; 56: 1064-1069.

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