A PRELIMINARY trial in which a nerve growth factor is being delivered directly to the brains of five people with Parkinson’s has produced very promising results. But doctors are being cautious, pointing out that other experimental treatments have produced dramatic results early on, only for hopes to be dashed.
Indeed, a previous trial of the same growth factor, called glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), ended in failure. However, in that trial it was injected into the cerebrospinal fluid once a month. “Basically, it was washing all over the place,” says Peter Heywood at Britain’s Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. The…
