Doctors Test Targets For Deep Brain Stimulation In Parkinson Surgery

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2009

Doctors may be able to tailor a specialized form of brain surgery to more closely match the needs of Parkinson patients, according to results from the first large-scale effort to compare the two current target areas of deep brain stimulation surgery, or DBS.  Called the COMPARE Trial…

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Regional Differences in Medical Device Development

Feb 3, 2009
By: Jeremy Tinkler, Applied Clinical Trials

The regulatory expectations for data necessary for pre-market product approval in the EU are very different to those in the USA, especially in terms of the clinical data required.  This has introduced significant differences in the time to market in the USA compared with the EU, particularly in the case of high-risk devices (e.g. Class III and implantable Class IIb).  As a result, some US physicians have experienced one to three year delays in gaining access to certain important technical innovations such as drug eluting stents or percutaneous heart valves, compared to their European colleagues(1). This issue was the subject of an earlier article by Sarah Sorrel(2), which explained why these timelines can differ so extensively and provided an in depth examination of the clinical data requirements for market approval in the two systems. The present article revisits the issue and speculates on the underlying rationale for the regulatory differences.  More particularly, it brings the subject up to date by analyzing the recent changes in the European Medical Device Directives(3) to investigate whether the gap is widening or narrowing

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Brain probed in Parkinson’s study

BBC News / Edinburgh, East and Fife / Scotland, Page last updated at 01:27 GMT, Tuesday, 3 February 2009

New ways of treating Parkinson’s disease by stimulating the brain are to be investigated by scientists.

<>Deep brain stimulation eases symptoms, such as tremors, by allowing sufferers to deliver electrical pulses to electrodes implanted in their brains.  Researchers at St Andrews University will study what happens in the head when the electrodes are switched on.  They will also look at whether other symptoms can be eased by targeting different parts of the brain.

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Scientists Re-Examine a Treatment for Parkinson’s Disease Also: A study of young Americans and their use of social Web sites

Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 February 2009

VOICE ONE: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English.  I’m Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO: And, I’m Shirley Griffith. This week, we will tell about what is said to be the largest study yet of a treatment for Parkinson’s disease. We will also tell about a study of young Americans and their use of social Web sites on the Internet.

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Grant To Improve Targeting In Parkinson’s Surgery

Medical News Today, Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:05 AM PST

A $51,000 grant will enable University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers to determine whether sophisticated new imaging technologies can help them achieve pinpoint placement of deep-brain stimulation electrodes in patients with Parkinson’s disease

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