A brain “pacemaker” can help combat Parkinson's disease, according to ground-breaking medical research partly being carried out at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB).

Findings of the study suggest that combining deep brain stimulation (DBS) implant surgery with standard drug treatment can result in greater improvement in motor function and reduce symptoms more than drug treatment alone.

The research, published in the medical journal The Lancet, was carried out by Adrian Williams, Roz Mitchell, Hardev Pall and Jamilla Kausar and colleagues from QEHB and the Birmingham Trials Unit, together with many other hospitals and research centres in the UK.

The study, jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Parkinson’s UK and the Department of Health, involved a trial of 366 people with advanced Parkinson’s disease that was not being adequately controlled with medication.

Treatment with DBS involves implanting wire electrodes into the brain. These electrodes are attached to a “pacemaker” device, which regularly sends electrical impulses through the electrodes and into the brain.

Researchers followed up the participants one year after surgery to see whether DBS had any effect on their quality of life. They found that after a year, those who had a DBS implant had greater improvements in quality of life than those receiving medical treatment alone. This was particularly due to improvements in mobility, bodily discomfort and the ability to carry out the activities of daily living.

Participants who received DBS had also reduced their drug dose by about 34 per cent compared with the medical treatment group. However, DBS surgery was not without risks, though these were rarely serious.

The researchers concluded that one year after the study began treatment that combined surgery and best medical therapy “improved patient self-reported quality of life more than best medical therapy alone in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease”.

Professor Williams, Consultant Neurologist and Professor of Clinical Neurology, said: “DBS has been as dramatic an example of translational medicine in practice as the original description of dopamine deficiency and its correction in Parkinson’s disease.”

Researchers are continuing to collect information on the patients’ outcomes so that the longer-term effects of DBS can be studied. At the same time, advances and developments in the DBS technique are likely to continue and not only for Parkinson’s disease as it may also be effective in other conditions, such as Dystonia and Epilepsy.