This work was partly

supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan and Grants for scientific research (Program for Enhancing Systematic Education in Graduate School).
A retrospective case–control study evaluated the change in weight over a 2-year time interval following unilateral and staged bilateral STN DBS in PD. The Institutional Review Board at the University of Alabama at Birmingham approved the study. Written consent was not obtained individually from patients because the data were acquired retrospectively Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and deidentified. All patients were diagnosed with idiopathic PD by a movement disorder specialist using UK Brain Bank criteria (Daniel and Lees, 1993). Data on weight were reviewed from 43 consecutive

patients with moderate-to-advanced PD who underwent unilateral STN DBS contralateral to their most affected Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical hemibody. Improvements in motor function in following unilateral STN DBS in this cohort of patients at 1 year postoperatively are described in a prior study (Walker et al. 2009b). Among these patients, 25 subsequently underwent staged bilateral STN DBS when clinically necessary within 2 years of their first electrode placement. These 25 patients who had the staged procedure on the opposite side of the brain within 2 years of their initial surgery are referred to as “staged bilateral STN” Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical patients throughout. Patients who did not undergo the staged bilateral procedure within 2 years of their initial surgery are referred to as “unilateral STN” patients, regardless of whether they have subsequently undergone the staged bilateral procedure after Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the 2-year follow-up period. Weights were recorded at baseline and at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months following surgery. A second baseline weight was determined for patients Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical who received staged placement of contralateral STN DBS, defined as the weight immediately prior to their second surgery. The staged bilateral STN

DBS patients had a minimum of 3 months of subsequent follow up to evaluate weight change. Nine patients whose weight data were not available or incomplete were excluded. The initial age for the determination of baseline weight in the DBS patients was defined as the age of the subject on the day of STN DBS placement. All weights were measured during routine clinic appointments on the same electronic those scale. PD controls without DBS were identified in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Movement Disorders Registry, group matching to achieve similar age, gender, and disease severity using duration of disease and levodopa-equivalent dose (LED) per day. All controls were diagnosed and selleck followed by a movement disorders neurologist at University of Alabama. Controls were treated with levodopa and had at least 24 months of routine clinical follow-up to establish a change in weight over time.