Department of Neurology, Abant İzzet Baysal University Education and Research Hospital, Bolu, Turkey.
Clin Neuropharmacol. 2021;44(1):1-4. doi: 10.1097/WNF.0000000000000428.
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of botulinum toxin therapy, as a monotherapy, and its effect on quality of life in patients with essential tremor (ET) who are resistant to medical treatment or cannot tolerate optimum drug doses in the population.
This retrospective research was conducted between February 2019 and December 2019 with 15 adult patients (9 men and 6 women) in the 50-to-70 age group, who had a definite diagnosis of ET as evaluated by the same clinician. With the help of electroneuromyography, intramuscular onabotulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) injection was administered to the related muscles, not exceeding 100 U in total. Demographic characteristics and duration of disease of all patients were recorded. The tremor severity of patients before the injection, 1 month after the injection, and 3 months after the injection was assessed by the Fahn-Tolosa-Marín Tremor Rating Scale (FTM-TRS), applied by the same clinician during the face-to-face interviews, in addition to the Questionnaire for Essential Tremor (QUEST), which was filled out by participants.
The first month and third month mean QUEST and FTM-TRS scores were statistically lower than that before the procedure in patients with ET after BoNT-A injection (P = 0.001, P = 0.001, P = 0.001, and P = 0.001). In addition, the mean FTM-TRS and QUEST scores for the first month after the procedure were significantly lower than the mean FTM-TRS and QUEST scores for the third month (P = 0.005 and P = 0.007).
We believe that our study is valuable because there is no research on the effect of BoNT-A administration on ET treatment in the our country population and because the effect of BoNT-A treatment on quality of life in patients with ET was evaluated using the ET-specific QUEST scale.
本研究旨在评估肉毒毒素治疗的有效性，作为单一疗法，以及其对治疗抵抗或不能耐受最佳药物剂量的原发性震颤（ET）患者的生活质量的影响。
这是一项回顾性研究，于 2019 年 2 月至 12 月进行，共纳入 15 名年龄在 50 至 70 岁之间的成年患者（9 名男性和 6 名女性），这些患者均由同一位临床医生明确诊断为 ET。借助肌电图，在相关肌肉内注射肌肉内注射肉毒毒素 A（BoNT-A），总量不超过 100 U。记录所有患者的人口统计学特征和疾病持续时间。由同一位临床医生在面对面访谈中应用震颤严重程度量表（FTM-TRS）评估患者注射前、注射后 1 个月和 3 个月的震颤严重程度，同时由患者填写原发性震颤问卷（QUEST）。
ET 患者 BoNT-A 注射后 1 个月和 3 个月的 QUEST 和 FTM-TRS 评分均值均显著低于治疗前（P = 0.001，P = 0.001，P = 0.001 和 P = 0.001）。此外，治疗后 1 个月的 FTM-TRS 和 QUEST 评分均值显著低于治疗后 3 个月的 FTM-TRS 和 QUEST 评分均值（P = 0.005 和 P = 0.007）。
我们认为本研究具有价值，因为在我国人群中，尚无关于 BoNT-A 给药对 ET 治疗影响的研究，并且使用 ET 特异性 QUEST 量表评估了 BoNT-A 治疗对 ET 患者生活质量的影响。
