title: Long-term improvement of musician's dystonia after stereotactic ventro-oral thalamotomy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Musician's dystonia is a task-specific movement disorder that causes twisting or repetitive abnormal finger postures and movements, which tend to occur only while playing musical instruments. Such a movement disorder will probably lead to termination of the careers of affected professional musicians. Most of the currently available treatments have yet to provide consistent and satisfactory results. We present the long-term follow-up results of ventro-oral thalamotomy for 15 patients with musician's dystonia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between October 2003 and September 2010, 15 patients with medically intractable task-specific focal hand dystonia that occurred only while playing musical instruments underwent ventro-oral thalamotomy. We used Tubiana's musician's dystonia scale to evaluate the patients' pre- and postoperative neurological conditions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All patients except 1 (93%) experienced dramatic improvement of dystonic symptoms immediately after ventro-oral thalamotomy. The mean follow-up period was 30.8 months (range=4-108 months). None of the patients experienced recurrence or deterioration of symptoms during the follow-up periods.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Ventro-oral thalamotomy remarkably improved musician's dystonia, and the effect persisted for a long duration.
authors: Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors: Shiro
authors: S
authors: Horisawa
authors: Takaomi
authors: T
authors: Taira
authors: Shinichi
authors: S
authors: Goto
authors: Taku
authors: T
authors: Ochiai
authors: Takeshi
authors: T
authors: Nakajima
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D020821:Dystonic Disorders / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013238:Stereotaxic Techniques; D013788:Thalamus / Q000601:surgery*; D016896:Treatment Outcome