IMPORTANCE Pain is a common and distressing feature in Parkinson disease (PD). The major indication of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) is motor complications in advanced PD; however, pain reduction after STN DBS has been noted. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the long-term effect of STN DBS on pain in PD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Twenty-four patients who underwent STN DBS at the , were studied. The assessments of pain were performed preoperatively and 8 years after surgery. Because 13 of the total 24 patients had additional 2-year postoperative data, the serial change between the preoperative and the 2-and 8-year follow-ups after surgery was also evaluated.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESMotor symptoms were assessed using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and the Hoehn and Yahr staging scale. The severity of pain was scored according to an ordinal scale ranging from 0 (absent) to 10 (maximal pain) in 7 parts of the body (head, neck, trunk, and the upper and lower extremities on each side of the body). For each body part, the quality of pain was grouped into 1 of 4 categories: dystonic, musculoskeletal, radiculoneuritic, and central.
RESULTSSixteen of the 24 patients (67%) experienced pain at baseline when not taking medication (off-state). All off-state pain at baseline improved or disappeared at 8 years after surgery. The number of body parts with pain was 21 at baseline and decreased to 11 at 8 years after the surgery. The mean (SD) and median scores of the off-state pain were 6.2 (2.5) and 7.0 at baseline and improved to 3.5 (2.2) and 2.5 at 8 years after the surgery, respectively. However, new pain developed in 18 of 24 patients (75%) during the 8-year follow-up period. The number of body parts with newly developed pain was 47, and the mean (SD) and median scores for new pain were 4.4 (3.0) and 3.0, respectively. The types of new pain at 8 years were musculoskeletal in 11 patients, central in 4 patients, radiculoneuritic in 3 patients, and dystonic in 1 patient.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEPain associated with PD is improved by STN DBS, and the beneficial effect persists after a long-term follow-up of 8 years. In addition, new pain, especially the musculoskeletal type, developed in most patients, becoming a long-term distressing problem.
Dopa-responsive dystonia (DRD) has a classic presentation of childhood or adolescent-onset dystonia, mild parkinsonism, marked diurnal fluctuations, improvement with sleep or rest, and a dramatic and sustained response to low doses of L-dopa without motor fluctuations or dyskinesias. However, there have been many papers on patients with a wide range of features, which report them as DRD mainly because they had dystonic syndromes with L-dopa responsiveness. Many mutations in the dopaminergic system have been found as molecular genetic defects. Therefore, the clinical and genetic spectra of DRD are unclear, which lead to difficulties in diagnostic work-ups and planning treatments. We propose the concept of DRD and DRD-plus to clarify the confusion in this area and to help understand the pathophysiology and clinical features, which will help in guiding diagnostic investigations and planning treatments. We critically reviewed the literature on atypical cases and discussed the limitations of the gene study.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11910-014-0461-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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