summary: This unique long term follow up study from the Mayo Clinic reports long term outcomes in a small cohort of patients with severe MS related tremor receiving deep brain stimulation or thalamotomy. Although the surgery was initially successful in all patients, the authors report a recurrence of tremor within a median of 3 months in all cases studied. The deep brain stimulation patients seemed to do best, with 2 patients tremor free at 5 years.

The authors concluded that the benefit from surgery for severe tremor in this cohort was short-lived (median 3months), with poor prognosis in the long term.

authors: Hassan A, Ahlskog JE, Rodriguez M, Matsumoto JY.

source: Eur J Neurol. 2012 Jan 17. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-1331.2011.03626.x. [Epub ahead of print]

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