Surgical treatment of Parkinson’s disease

  After the middle and late stages of PD patients, many of them will inevitably develop serious complications such as drug efficacy reduction, symptom fluctuation and allodynia, some of them cannot be resolved by the above mentioned drug adjustment, at this time, appropriate surgical procedures will be a good option.  There are three types of surgical procedures: the first is destruction surgery, where the targets of destruction are the Vim nucleus of the thalamus, the ventral posterior medial nucleus (GPi) of the pallidum and the STN of the thalamic floor nucleus; the second procedure is deep brain stimulation DBS; and the third is stem cell transplantation.  Destructive surgery is now rarely tried in countries such as Europe and the United States due to its heavier adverse effects, such as swallowing, speech and balance dysfunction, and its poor long-term outcome after 1-2 years.  Neural stem cell transplantation is still in the animal experimental stage and it may be a long time before it is used in the clinic.  At this stage, DBS implantation is the latest advancement in the treatment of PD, and has largely replaced disfiguring surgery in developed countries.  DBS is the use of brain stereotactic surgery to implant electrodes in a specific location in the brain, such as STN.  Possible mechanisms of DBS to improve PD: 1. DBS stimulates the release of local inhibitory neurotransmitters; 2. Depolarizing block, DBS resembles functional disruption in the target area and raises the threshold of excitatory potentials; 3. Modulation of neuronal activity: the pulsatile firing stimulation of DBS produces a regular and stable firing pattern? corrects abnormal excitation and irregular firing of neurons in the basal ganglia loops of PD patients.  Studies in several clinical centers have shown that the DBS procedure of STN not only improves all symptoms of PD, including midline symptoms such as “difficulty in starting” and “step stiffness”, but also reduces the dosage of levodopa and the adverse effects on levodopa. It is also effective in reducing the dosage of levodopa, and has good effects on the adverse effects of levodopa, such as allodynia and painful spasm.  DBS resulted in a 42% reduction in total UPDRS scores and a 48% reduction in motor function scores during the “off” phase of the drug. Tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia were significantly improved. The total amount of medication was reduced by 38% at 1 year and 36% at 2 years postoperatively. There was a 46.4% reduction in allodynia scores.  Surgery is mainly indicated for patients with: 1. typical PD, previously effective on levodopa preparations.  2.After systemic medication, symptoms can no longer be controlled or comorbidities of dyskinesia appear, which cannot be improved by adjusting medication.  3.No serious cognitive and psychiatric disorders and severe brain atrophy.  4. The time limit is based on two points, one is because PD responds well to levodopa and its “honeymoon period” is more than 5 years, if the patient responds poorly to levodopa in the early stage, the diagnosis of PD is doubtful; the second is because some patients with PD superimposed syndrome The second reason is that some patients with PD superimposed syndrome have mild symptoms in the early stage and also have certain response to levodopa, and at this time, if surgery is performed, it is not only ineffective but may aggravate the disease.