IMS and SUM Hospital conducts Odisha’s first deep brain stimulation surgery to treat Parkinson’s

Bhubaneswar: The Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, faculty of medicine of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University (SOA) here, has become the first hospital in Odisha to successfully undertake Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery to treat Parkinson’s Disease.

Regarded as a powerful advanced surgical therapy to treat certain aspects of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), it mostly addresses the movement symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease and improves some non-motor symptoms including sleep and pain, Prof. (Dr.) Ashok Kumar Mahapatra, one of the country’s eminent neuro surgeons and SOA’s Principal Advisor (Health Sciences), said.

Though DBS will not cure the progression of the disease, it will, however, improve the quality of life of advanced PD patients, he told reporters here.

Prof. (Dr.) Mahapatra said DBS was relatively a safe surgery and the patient remains awake for most of the time during surgery. “Earlier, this condition was treated only with medicines but now it can be done through surgery,” he said.

The novel surgery was conducted on a 36-year-old woman in the hospital recently who was suffering from PD.

Prof. (Dr.) Pusparaj Samantasinhar, Medical Superintendent, said this surgery had been conducted in Odisha for the first time at IMS and SUM Hospital. The patient was doing fine following surgery, he said.

Prof. Soubhagya Panigrahi, Professor and Head of department of Neuro Surgery, said the surgery needed seven to eight hours.

Prof. (Dr.) Lulup Kumar Sahoo, professor in the Neuro Medicine department who treated the patient, said medication often caused the patient to feel good in the initial four to five years of the disease. But after that medication is not found to be effective for PD patients, he said.

Parkinson’s is a neuro degenerative disease and a movement disorder where the body becomes slow. It occurs due to loss of brain cells required for dopamine production. It commonly occurs in elderly patients above the age of 60 years, Prof. (Dr.) Panigrahi said.

Prof. (Dr.) Sahoo said the disease was now being found in even young persons. Most of the time, the exact cause of PD is unknown, but some of the young patients have genetic causes,” he said.

Prof. (Dr.) Sahoo said the disease was characterized by symptoms related to movement like slowness in walking, writing difficulty, slowness of voice, tremor of hand and leg, stiffness of body parts and sometimes postural imbalance. It also has different non motor symptoms like constipation, sleep disturbances, depression and anxiety, he added.

Prof. (Dr.) Srikanta Kumar Sahu, Head of the Neurology department and Prof. (Dr.) Ram Chandra Deo of Neuro Surgery department, were present at the press conference.