Woman Stable Following Pioneering Brain Surgery

An unusual operation, in which cells from an Orange County woman’s adrenal gland were grafted to her brain, went smoothly Friday, neurosurgeons at UCI Medical Center reported.

There were no complications in the nearly six-hour operation--an investigating procedure that doctors hope will lessen the 60-year-old woman’s symptoms from Parkinson’s disease, according to Elaine Beno, a medical center spokeswoman.

The patient, a woman who was reportedly having increasing difficulty moving because of the disease, was in serious but stable condition Friday afternoon. She was expected to be transferred from the recovery room to intensive care Friday night and remain in the hospital for about five days, Beno said.

Because the surgery is contributing to medical research, the cost of the operation and hospital stay--expected to range from $20,000 to $30,000--will not be billed to the patient but will be paid by the university hospital, neurosurgeon Dr. Leslie Cahan said earlier this week.

The UCI team, headed by Cahan and Dr. Ronald S. Young, chief of UCI’s division of neurosurgery, is trying to replicate the pioneering surgeries performed in Mexico City that have had some success in reducing the severity of Parkinson’s disease.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans, usually those over the age of 50, are afflicted with Parkinson’s, which causes muscle rigidity and tremors. Patients with the disease are deficient in a chemical called dopamine, which is normally produced in the brain.

UCI neurosurgeons are hoping the transplanted adrenal cells will stimulate the woman’s brain to again produce dopamine or related chemicals and that some of the woman’s mobility will be restored.