“We are still surprised by the results every time we do the treatment,” exclaims Ramiro Álvarez, head of the section of the movement disorders unit in the neurosciences area of ??the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital. It is the only public center in Catalonia where the innovative high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment is applied – also in the Santiago hospital complex (Galicia) and the San Carlos hospital (Madrid) – in patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. suffer from drug-resistant tremors.
The results are immediate, almost miraculous. “You put a patient who is shaking in resonance; many cannot write or hold a glass, for example, and suddenly they can pick up that glass or draw a spiral,” says Álvarez. “It never ceases to impress. You see the results in such an immediate way that it touches the heart of professionals,” he highlights.
The Badalona hospital began two years ago to non-invasively treat diseases such as essential tremor or the tremor of Parkinson’s disease using the new technology approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016. To the patient A type of helmet is placed on him from which hundreds of ultrasound beams are sent that cross the skull and converge on a specified target in the hypothalamus, where they render the cell causing the tremor useless through a burn. The treatment does not require admission.
In these two years, Germans Trias i Pujol has performed more than 200 procedures, with which improvements in pulse stability of between 70% and 90% have been achieved. “Extraordinarily positive” degrees of improvement, according to Álvarez, which directly impact the quality of life of patients. It is estimated that in Catalonia there are 8,000 people with disabling tremors, and the hospital can care for between four and five per week. There is a waiting list, and a novelty: since September, bilateral treatment (both sides of the body) has been authorized with a minimum interval of nine months between each unilateral procedure, a therapy from which 16 patients have benefited.
Isabel Marcos, 74, hopes to undergo the procedure a second time after the summer. In November 2022 she received HIFU therapy for the right side and declared herself delighted with the results: “It has gone quite well for me. My hand shakes a little when I get out of bed but then I feel great.
This neighbor from Martorelles (Vallès Oriental) has suffered from essential tremor, like her father, for years. She started with mild symptoms and escalated to the point of becoming disabling. “I couldn’t eat, I had to hold the spoon with both hands, in the kitchen I would drop everything, and thread a needle… I won’t even tell you.”
Despite everything, he ruled out undergoing deep brain stimulation, one of the procedures indicated for tremors that do not respond to pharmacological treatment, because it requires surgery for the implantation of intracerebral electrodes. He opted for the Germans Trias proposal with some skepticism – “I didn’t expect it, I thought I was going to stay like this after so many years” – but now the wait is long for the treatment that should mitigate or eliminate the tremor of his the right hand.
According to Germans Trias, the procedure favors a significant improvement in the quality of life of patients and, according to the results, a saving in healthcare costs. Up to 60% of those affected have a reduction in their job expectations and between 15% and 205 leave their work activity prematurely.
Most of the people operated on at the Badalona hospital are over 60 years old. The oldest is 89. In only one case has there been a recurrence of the tremor sufficient to require the procedure to be repeated, explains Álvares. “There are patients who tell us that their lives have changed, being able to eat and drink again, write, use their cell phone or shave normally. Having this affectation is much more dramatic for day-to-day life than it seems,” he concludes.
