United Parkinson Foundation Neurotransplantation Registry: Multicenter US and Canadian data base, presurgical and 12 month follow-up

This chapter focuses on the experience of 13 investigative teams who contributed data on patients who underwent adrenal medullary transplantation for Parkinson's disease. The United Parkinson Foundation (UPF) office contacted groups who attended the workshops and others known to be working in the field and solicited their participation. Once baseline data had been contributed, regular follow-up forms had been automatically sent to participants. Each set of investigators developed its own protocol, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and selected the surgical procedure to be tested. The only restriction applied by the registry has been the uniform manner of data collection. Each center completed a registry form for its patients at the baseline, hospital discharge, three month post-operative, and 12 month post-operative time periods. The number of complications during hospitalization and the duration of hospitalization have been greater for the patients undergoing abdominal adrenalectomy and for those undergoing frontal craniotomy.