Gamma Knife Radiology Question

[EarlJam]

My best friend's dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease last year.

During a phone call last night, I learned his situation is getting worse. My friend said his dad had read something about Gamma Knife Surgery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. He said it sounded promising.

With Duke being one of the top medical institutions in the country, I thought perhaps some of you could give me some good insight that I may not be able to find of the Web.

1. Anyone have any contacts at Piedmont or Duke that can provide good insight into Gamma Knife Surgery? Is their a doctor you would recommend?

2. Anyone know about the procedure personally? Or any other procedure my friend's dad may want to look into?

I do not have a lot of experience in this area (i.e., haven't "lived" with Parkinson's in my family). But my friend said his dad is now embarrassed to go out to dinner because he spills food on his shirt, has trouble chewing and swallowing, etc.

Any insights or recommendations would be most helpful. Thanks in advance!

-EarlJam

[TillyGalore]

I'm checking around at Duke. Will let you know what I find out.

[TillyGalore]

Duke does not have a Gamma Knife. The neurosurgeon here who does specialize in movement disorders and Parkinson's disease, Dr. Dennis Turner, http://neuro.surgery.duke.edu/module...dempo=turne008, is going on a six month sabbatical the end of the month. Will see if I can get some info from him before he goes.

Baptist Hospital, Wake Forest University's hospital, does have a Gamma Knife, as does the hospital at UVA.

Will post more info when I have some.

[EarlJam]

Duke does not have a Gamma Knife. The neurosurgeon here who does specialize in movement disorders and Parkinson's disease, Dr. Dennis Turner, http://neuro.surgery.duke.edu/module...dempo=turne008, is going on a six month sabbatical the end of the month. Will see if I can get some info from him before he goes.

Baptist Hospital, Wake Forest University's hospital, does have a Gamma Knife, as does the hospital at UVA.

Will post more info when I have some.

You rule. Thanks.

-EarlJam

[dukegirlinsc]

Baptist Hospital, Wake Forest University's hospital, does have a Gamma Knife, as does the hospital at UVA.

My grandmother had tons of help from the Radiology folks at UVA & Wake Forest. I don't really know all of the details, as I don't understand a lot of the terminology, but I know she's been a lot better off after several months of different treatments.

[tecumseh]

I have had a few patients of mine have gamma knife treatments but they were for brain tumors. I will say they tolerated the procedure well and it was successful. It is really pretty interesting technology as they take radiation beams coming from multiple directions and the beams all intersect at the desired area of destruction which is mapped with an MRI. A single beam would be way too high energy and cause damage along its entire track.

It does seem like it might be a reasonable way to treat Parkinsons disease. Such patients are elderly (usually) and somewhat frail. Also the treatment is not curative. All of this points to a type of surgery in which if you balance costs and benefits you should not be willing to put up with too much morbidity. Like I said with my few patients recovery was very quick.

[TillyGalore]

I've been told that using the Gamma Knife for Parkinson's is still in the experimental stages.

As I mentioned Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem has a Gamma Knife and was told Pittsburgh has one as does Brown University. In checking the web sites for both Baptist and Pittsburgh they do not appear to be using the Gamma Knife for Parkinson's but rather brain tumors.

I was encouraged to check out the Medtronics web site for more "conventional" treatments for "ordinary deep brain stimulation surgery". Which I did and found this, http://www.medtronic.com/neuro/parki...iva_qa2.html#1.

I also checked Brown University's web site about their Gamma Knife, but the link with the most info I could find was to a scientist doing research using the Gamma Knife on rats with Parkinson's (which feeds into the notion that this is still experimental). Here is a link to the scientist, his email is noted and thought you might want to email him: http://www.brainscience.brown.edu/de...ty/friehs.html.
From additional research I've done, it appears he has an article coming out soon in Neurosurgery Focustitled: Stereotactic radiosurgery for functional disorders. Not sure if the article addresses using the Gamma Knife on humans to treat Parkinson's.

I was given the names of a couple of Duke neurologists who would be able to provide a clinical evaluation of your friend's father and would also be able to help determine whether surgery would be helpful. Send me a PM if you want their names.

[DevilAlumna]

I heard an interesting talk show on Deep Brain stimulation and its affects on Parkinsons patients.

The link also has names of the doctor and nurse who run the DBS program out of Swedish Medical here in Seattle.

http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=13044

[billybreen]

I heard an interesting talk show on Deep Brain stimulation and its affects on Parkinsons patients.

They also covered this on the really cool Wired Science show on PBS HD. The before and after is amazing.