Fighting Parkinson’s disease with deep brain stimulation: Alim-Louis Benabid named European Inventor Award 2016 finalist
- French physicist-neurosurgeon nominated for innovation prize of European Patent Office
- High-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS) relieves symptoms of Parkinson's disease and other neurological illnesses without radical surgeries
- Discovered by chance, the method relies on electrical charges to the brain
- EPO President Battistelli: "Benabid's method has become standard treatment at hospitals and has already improved the lives of more than 150 000 people."
Munich, 26 April 2016 - Parkinson's disease (PD) currently affects an estimated 7 to 10 million people worldwide, many of them suffering severe symptoms that prohibit independent lifestyles. But a new hope arrived in the early 1990s: A therapeutic method known as high-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS) discovered by French neurosurgeon and physicist Alim-Louis Benabid (73) radically improves treatment outcomes. The method reduces symptoms, allowing patients previously immobilised from complications related to Parkinson's disease to resume mobile, functional lives. It has become the clinical standard for the treatment of advanced Parkinson's and conditions such as epilepsy, essential tremor, and involuntary muscle contractions known as dystonia.
For this achievement, the European Patent Office (EPO) has named Benabid one of three finalists for the European Inventor Award 2016 in the category "Research". The winners of the 11th edition of the EPO's annual innovation prize will be announced at a ceremony in Lisbon on 9 June.
"Alim-Louis Benabid's invention marks a milestone in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other neurological conditions, enabling patients to resume more fulfilling lives," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli, announcing the finalists for this year's award. "His method has become standard treatment at hospitals around the world and has already improved the lives of more than 150 000 people."
‘Pacemaker' for the brain
Deep brain stimulation was first researched as a method to treat PD in the 1960s but showed very modest results. The approach was largely abandoned in favour of radical surgical procedures and drug therapies. Benabid reignited interest in DBS after finding the exact high-frequency range that decreased the tremor symptoms associated with PD and other neurological conditions. Thanks to Benabid's invention, treatments are now adjusted according to individual patient needs. DBS relies on a surgical procedure during which doctors insert a high-frequency electrical probe into the patient's brain. The probe is worn permanently - similar to a pacemaker for heart disease - administering electrical charges at controlled intensities of 130 HZ to targeted regions of the thalamus and surrounding areas, as needed. The device's non-obtrusive design makes it easy for patients to receive life-changing effects without major changes to their lifestyles.
A new hope for Parkinson's patients
The invention marks a radically new approach to treatment providing previously unthinkable improvements in terms of quality of life. Prior treatments of tremors associated with Parkinson's disease included removing entire segments of the brain, to create so-called "lesions" - a practice applied in the 1940s to 1960s through radical surgery. Treatments with dopamine-producing oral drugs have also been used, but are known to potentially worsen symptoms. As a gentle and controlled method, DBS proves effective to combat tremors without chemicals or lesions, and it offers a major advantage over surgery: it is fully reversible.
Eureka moment
What makes the technology even more remarkable is its chance discovery. While operating on a patient with Parkinson's at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble in 1987, Benabid inserted an electronic probe into the patient's thalamus, a region of the brain associated with a muscle complication known as tremor. Initially, the probe was set to a frequency of 50 HZ, but when Benabid increased the frequency to 100 HZ, the patient's tremor subsided entirely. This was the eureka moment.
"I realized that the moment I stimulated at 100 Hertz, the shaking stopped. I asked him if he could move his fingers. He could, and that proved that we had only suppressed the shaking... That was when we realized that we had stumbled across something potentially useful for therapy," recalls Benabid.
Over the next few years, Benabid advanced the approach into clinical practice, receiving CE mark approval for PD treatment in Europe beginning in 1998 and full US FDA approval in 2002.
Improvements that last a lifetime
The innovation ushered in new possibilities for the lifelong management of Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, and it has been administered to over 150 000 patients worldwide. Because the device is worn permanently, improvements in quality of life are immediate and long-term. According to the Movement Disorder Society the lifetime incremental cost-utility ratio for deep brain stimulation was EUR 6 700 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY).
A rare combination of neurosurgeon and physicist
During a medical career spanning more than 45 years, Benabid perfected numerous aspects of DBS, including the design of probes, electrodes, and the system's fixation apparatus. The secret to his success lies in his unique background: A physician as well as a physicist, he studied Medicine at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble and earned his medical degree in 1970. He then went on to earn his doctorate in physics in 1978, also at Joseph Fourier University - which put him in a perfect position to pursue medical innovations in the field of neurosciences. Until 2007, the skilled neurosurgeon served as the head of the Neurosurgery department at the University Hospital in Grenoble, a time during which the avid amateur painter with an interest in astronomy achieved his major breakthroughs in DBS. He was also Director of Preclinical Neurosciences at Inserm (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) from 1988 to 2006.
In 2009, Benabid co-founded Clinatec, a transnational biomedical technology centre that includes high-profile research organisations, to ensure market entry for the technology. The original invention was commercialised in a partnership between Clinatec and global med-tech firm Medtronic.
Today, Benabid is chairman of Clinatec and emeritus professor of biophysics at Joseph Fourier University on the board of numerous institutes and organizations related to the advancement of technology in the neurosciences. He is the author of 12 granted patents and has published 523 scientific papers. Several third-party analysts estimate that revenue of the global deep brain stimulation devices market for Parkinson's disease will exceed EUR 2.95 billion in 2020.
Additional resources
View the patent: EP2184083, EP1682218, EP2139389, EP1961444, EP1932561
High-tech in the operating room: The future of medicine is built on patented technologies
Thanks to high-frequency deep brain stimulation, many patients with Parkinson's disease can now resume functional, self-directed lifestyles. DBS is one of several recent medical breakthroughs - based on patented technologies - that are changing lives around the world. Read more about patented medical technologies.
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