Unilateral focused ultrasound thalamotomy for tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease: blinded evaluation and imaging correlation.

Abstract

There have been promising outcomes from the use of unilateral High-intensity focused ultrasound (HiFUS) thalamotomy in tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease. However, the reliability of this treatment has been questioned due to the high rate of tremor relapse. Authors have hypothesized that treatment failure is due to insufficient HiFUS lesion size, though detailed volumetric lesion analyses are lacking. To report the blinded tremor outcomes of unilateral HiFUS thalamotomy in tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease and correlate these outcomes with lesion characteristics, including the dentatorubrothalamic tract ablation overlap, which may provide valuable insights into the mechanisms behind tremor relapse and ultimately refine the optimal HiFUS target for tremor in Parkinson's disease. Retrospective review of consecutively treated tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease patients followed under a uniform protocol. Blinded tremor analysis was completed on pre- and post-operative videos. Patients were classified into two groups: 'responder' (≥50% improvement in Hand Tremor Score) or 'suboptimal responder' (<50% improvement in Hand Tremor Score) at the last follow-up. 17 patients with tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease underwent a unilateral HiFUS thalamotomy at our centre. Pre- and post-operative videos were available in 15 patients for analysis. Baseline median Hand Tremor Score was 11.0 (9.5-14.5), improving to 6.0 (1-13.5) over a median 24-month (3-36) follow-up period (P = 0.098). Seven patients had ≥50% improvement in Hand Tremor Score, while eight patients had <50% improvement in Hand Tremor Score at the last follow-up. At the final follow-up, the median change in Hand Tremor Score from baseline was 91% in responders, compared to an 8% increase in the suboptimal responders (P < 0.002). Levodopa daily dose equivalent increased by 17% in responders (P = 0.043), and the difference between responders and suboptimal responders was significant at the final follow-up (P = 0.024). There was a trend for larger lesions in the suboptimal responders, 157.5mm³ (113.4-215) compared to 119.7mm³ (111.6-237.6) in responders. Further, the dentatorubrothalamic core lesion overlap was greater in the suboptimal responders, 41.7% (40.5-48.8%), compared to the responders, 27.1% (13.8-39.3%), (P = 0.010), and was associated with a higher Hand Tremor Score at the final follow-up. We found that unilateral HiFUS thalamotomy in tremor-dominant Parkinson's Disease resulted in sustained tremor reduction in approximately 50% of patients but was also in the context of higher levodopa replacement. These favourable outcomes did not correlate with DRTT ablation overlap or lesion size, providing indirect evidence that the most efficacious HiFUS thalamic tremor target differs between essential tremor and tremor-dominant Parkinson's Disease.