OUTCOME FOLLOWING INTRASTRIATAL FETAL MESENCEPHALIC GRAFTS FOR PARKINSONS PATIENTS IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE VOLUME OF GRAFTED TISSUE

The effect of varying the volume of grafted fetal. mesencephalic tissu e was studied in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease in a sin gle-blinded study Evaluations were performed according to the Core Ass essment Program for Intracerebral Transplantation and videotaped both prior to transplantation and in 3-month intervals after transplantatio n. One group, low-volume grafts (six subjects; mean age, 57.2 years), received ventral mesencephalon grafts from one to two donors with an a pproximate volume up to 20 mm(3), while the second group, high-volume grafts (seven subjects; mean age, 59.5 years), received ventral mesenc ephalon grafts from three or more donors with an approximate volume of 24 mm(3). Both groups of patients demonstrated significant improvemen t over presurgical baseline scores on all major parameters. The high-v olume group had significantly greater improvements on all the UPDRS sc ores and also better performance on a variety of motor performance tas ks over that seen among low-volume patients. These results indicate th at variations of fetal graft volume do have an impact on clinical outc ome. (C) 1997 Academic Press.