Parkinson’s, directional leads for personalized therapy

Thin electrical catheters, directed and monitored by the operator, represent the new frontier for the management of Parkinson’s. The therapy is used in Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), the surgical treatment that has shown excellent results over the last twenty years in controlling motor symptoms and improving the person’s clinical picture in general. The new directional lead system for Parkinson’s management is called SenSight and was developed by Medtronic, a world leader in medical technology and is intended to be used for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy. Directional leads appear as extremely fine (0.5 to 1.5 mm) electrical wires. They are implanted under local anesthesia on carefully selected patients and work together with a small neurostimulator, similar to a pacemaker, which sends electrical signals to the area of ​​the brain correlated with Parkinson’s symptoms. Thanks to the possibility of directing the impulses, the therapy uses with great precision the ability to modulate the stimulation based on the need, thanks to sensing, or the monitoring of brain activity.The advantages of this new treatment of the disease are offered by the possibility of have individual and specific data of the patient, monitored by the operator on a computer in detail, to allow a truly personalized therapy capable of improving the quality of life of the person. Studies on the application of directional leads have shown that deep brain stimulation performed is effective in controlling essential tremor, dystonia and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease that cannot be adequately controlled by drug therapy. to this treatment “patients must have a confirmed diagnosis of ‘decompensated’ Parkinson’s disease – says Professor Andrea Landi, of the Pediatric Neurosurgery Unit, University of Padua Hospital, which performed the first surgery in Italy – that is, no longer manageable with pharmacological treatment alone, they must not have psychiatric disorders and lesions in the pre-implantation brain resonance examination. The operation is indicated for patients up to 70 years of age “.” The advantages – continues Professor Landi – are evident after implantation following which patients have good control of main symptoms diseases such as tremor, stiffness, slowness of movement (bradykinesia); fluctuations and dyskinesias due to drugs (in particular levodopa) also greatly improve. Finally, there is also an improvement in mood, sleep-wake rhythm and walking. For this reason, medical therapy can generally be reduced “. To date, in addition to the Padua Hospital, the structures where the directional lead has been successfully implanted are: the University Hospital of Siena; the” S . Salvatore “of L’Aquila; the IRCCS Institute of Neurological Sciences of Bologna, the ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII of Bergamo; the AOU Maggiore della Carità of Novara; the IRCCS Galeazzi Orthopedic Institute of Milan and IRCCS Mondino Foundation of Pavia .Medtronic was the first company in the United States to offer conditional full-body MRI DBS systems to enable patients to undergo safe scans of any part of the body under certain conditions. Since 1987, more than 175,000 Medtronic DBS devices have been implanted around the world to treat movement disorders and other indications. The company (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Dublin, in Ireland, is one of the world’s largest medical technology, services and solutions companies pursuing the goal of relieving pain, restoring health and extending the lives of millions of people around the world. 90,000 employees worldwide, serving doctors, hospitals and patients in over 150 countries. The company works closely with stakeholders around the world to help improve healthcare, just as its motto suggests: ‘Further, Together’.