An ultrasound machine for the treatment of Parkinson’s: within 60 days it will be available at the Vanvitelli hospital in Naples.
A new treatment for Parkinson’s: in 60 days, the new therapy will begin at the Luigi Vanvitelli University Hospital in Naples, thanks to a focused ultrasound system, guided by magnetic resonance imaging, which allows for the treatment of tremors, in particular drug-resistant Parkinson’s tremor and essential tremor, the hospital says. The machine was purchased thanks to regional funds and “has proven effective in over 70% of patients”, says the general director Ferdinand Russian.
“Thanks to the enormous teamwork carried out by all the staff of the strategic management and the collaboration of the relevant Regional Offices, we were able to quickly prepare what was necessary for the acquisition of this very important equipment which in fact makes our University Hospital and the Campania region a centre of attraction for hundreds of thousands of patients from all over Italy”, Russo explains. Instead, he explains Professor Alessandro Tessitoredirector of the UOC of Neurology: “Focused ultrasound hits the lesions of the thalamus, in particular the pale nucleus: in this way the area that produces the tremor becomes necrotic. The action is contralateral, this means that the “bombardment” on the right hemisphere resolves the tremor on the left and vice versa. The two treatments are performed nine months apart and there is no need to repeat the procedure”. Campania thus becomes one of the few regions in Italy, and the only one in the South, to have this therapeutic system.