Bob Martone,
I m sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your posting on Feb. 2.
I was in Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, and St. Louis for two weeks and I am just
now getting caught up on my correspondence.
I am delighted to hear that the Univ. of Texas is moving ahead in
developing a Pallidotomy program, but disappointed that they are using the Emory
model. The Emory model does take ten plus hours to do a unilateral Pallidotomy
because they do all sorts of microelectrode recordings in an attempt to locate
the probe correctly and thereby create the lesion Such a procedure is
unnecessarily hard on the patient who must endure long hours wearing the
stereotactic frame and off meds simply so that the doctors can write up nice
academic reports describing the microelectrode recordings.
Dr. Iacono meanwhile is doing bilateral Pallidotomies in three hours with
a 95-98% success rate. He has currently performed well over 350 Pallidotomies
as opposed to the 70 you said had been done at Emory. Dr. Iacono has performed
almost that many bilateral Pallidotomies. We are even starting to get some
patients at Loma Linda who had the surgery at Emory with negative results.
Excuse me for being so blunt in response to your query, but I find myself
being a strong advocate for the patient and disheartened by all the political
games I see being played out in the medical community over the Pallidotomy.
Dr. Don Berns
4943 Del Monte Rd.
La Canada, CA 91011
818-790-8812
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