Ultrasound Ablation in the Treatment of Essential Tremor

RESEARCH UPDATE

Surgical ablation as a treatment strategy for refractory essential tremor (ET) and Parkinson disease has been an option for patients with these conditions for quite some time. With relatively good clinical efficacy, the main disadvantage of this approach is that the surgery is invasive, requires a craniotomy, and exposes patients to the risk of intracranial complications, such as bleeding and infections.

High-intensity focused ultrasound is one of the new approaches to thalamotomy that is being used for patients who have refractory ET or refractory tremors of PD. This procedure, which hundreds of patients have already experienced, relies on the thermal energy of ultrasound, guided by MRI, to achieve non-invasive thalamic ablation.

Several studies have published findings on therapeutic patient response and adverse effects, providing insight into the outcomes of this treatment approach.

Essential tremor

A large meta-analysis used data from nine studies, including a total of 160 patients who were treated with MRI guided high intensity focused ultrasound for their ET.¹ The pooled percentage improvements in four different quality-of-life measures that are commonly used in ET studies were 62.2%, 62.4%, 69.1%, and 46.5%. Dizziness and ataxia were the most common adverse effects at three months after the procedure, and these effects had significantly resolved at 12 months post procedure.

Parkinson disease

Thalamotomy treatment is used to control refractory tremors in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), but it does not help control other symptoms of PD, such as bradykinesia or rigidity. A small study by Zaaroor and colleagues² included 30 patients who had either PD or ET-PD, which is defined as ET with subsequent development of PD. This group underwent unilateral thalamotomy of the ventral intermediate nucleus using MRI guided ultrasound.

After treatment, the mean score of the motor part of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) changed from a pre-treatment value of 24.9 to 16.4 at one month, and to 13.4 at six months. Similar improvements were documented using the Clinical Rating Scale for Tremor (CRST) and the Quality of Life in Essential Tremor (QUEST) questionnaire.

Patients experienced some adverse effects during the procedure. These include headaches, dizziness, paresthesia, and nausea, but no complications were noted. Adverse effects after the procedure included ataxia and unsteadiness, and these effects resolved after 3 months.

Cognitive effects >