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Thank you very much for summarizing this symposium in San Francisco.  Fetal
transplant surgery, although present for at least 10 years, does not give
the immediate and long term results one observes with STN stimulation.  We
have to accept that the only fruitful treatment for patients with advanced
PD is STN stimulation until a new treatment strategy may develop over the
next years or decennia.  We can talk on this network about medication
changes for patients with motor fluctuations and dyskinesias at lenght , but
these are short term relief efforts without much long-term hope. As I have
stated many times before there is no place for pallidotomies anymore.
Therefore, especially in the United States patient groups should pressure
the FDA to approve STN.  STN has been approved in Europe for many years,
where patients with STN now lead enjoyable non-invalidating lifes.

The current STN surgery, which is now performed in small numbers in the USA
is not correct either, because the electrodes used in the brain are the ones
used for pallidal stimulation and these are almost twice as big than those
used for STN stimulation used in Europe.  The FDA has not approved the
smaller STN electrodes. Thus probably three out of four electrode contacts
are not situated in the STN in patients who has STN surgery in the USA!!!

Greetings from Belgium,

Chris van der Linden, M.D.