One-pass deep brain stimulation of subthalamic nucleus and ventral intermediate nucleus for levodopa-resistant tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease

Bin Liu; Junpeng Xu; Zhebin Feng; Rui Hui; Yanyang Zhang; Di Liu; Qing Chang; Xinguang Yu; Zhiqi Mao

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2023.1289183

One-pass deep brain stimulation of subthalamic nucleus and ventral intermediate nucleus for levodopa-resistant tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease

Front Aging Neurosci. 2023 Dec 21:15:1289183. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2023.1289183. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Bin Liu^#^{1

2}, Junpeng Xu^#^{1

2}, Zhebin Feng², Rui Hui², Yanyang Zhang², Di Liu², Qing Chang², Xinguang Yu², Zhiqi Mao²

Affiliations

¹ Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing, China.
² Department of Neurosurgery, The First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: Tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease (TD-PD) can be further separated into levodopa-responsive and levodopa-resistant types, the latter being considered to have a different pathogenesis. Previous studies indicated that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or the globus pallidus internus (GPi) individually was not sufficient for tremor control, especially for the levodopa-resistant TD-PD (LRTD-PD). The thalamic ventral intermediate nucleus (VIM) has been regarded as a potent DBS target for different kinds of tremors. Therefore, we focused on the LRTD-PD subgroup and performed one-pass combined DBSs of STN and VIM to treat refractory tremors, aiming to investigate the safety and effectiveness of this one-trajectory dual-target DBS scheme.

Methods: We retrospectively collected five LRTD-PD patients who underwent a one-pass combined DBS of STN and VIM via a trans-frontal approach. The targeting of VIM was achieved by probabilistic tractography. Changes in severity of symptoms (measured by the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale part III, UPDRS-III), levodopa equivalent daily doses (LEDD), and disease-specific quality of life (measured by the 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire, PDQ-39) were evaluated.

Results: Three-dimensional reconstruction of electrodes illustrated that all leads were successfully implanted into predefined positions. The mean improvement rates (%) were 53 ± 6.2 (UPDRS-III), 82.6 ± 11.4 (tremor-related items of UPDRS), and 52.1 ± 11.4 (PDQ-39), respectively, with a mean follow-up of 11.4 months.

Conclusion: One-pass combined DBS of STN and VIM via the trans-frontal approach is an effective and safe strategy to alleviate symptoms for LRTD-PD patients.

Keywords: deep brain stimulation; levodopa response; subthalamic nucleus; tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease; ventral intermediate nucleus.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by STI 2030 – Major Projects (2021ZD0200407).